Resilience and Facing Pain with Business Leader, Gena Harper

Gena Harper works as a Certified Investment Management Analyst, Senior Vice President and Senior Investment Management Consultant at Morgan Stanley and provides her clients with custom financial planning that delves into and simplifies even the most complex situations. 

Gena also happens to be blind and has spent her entire adult life proving that limitations are simply hurdles to be cleared.  She made the US National Para cycling Team in 2012 and won a bronze medal in the National Disabled Ski Championships. She cycles, bikes, whitewater rafts, rock climbs, skateboards, practices yoga and has even tried cliff diving. She has won numerous awards including being the first recipient of The Glaucoma Foundation Award of Merit, the Women of Vision Award, the American Foundation for the Blind Kay Gallagher Award, and was recognized by Morgan Stanley as one of the 15 outstanding women professionals in 2015. 

She is passionate about empowering others, and improving the lives of people with many kinds of disabilities, not just the blind. She helps employers to understand that by hiring people with disabilities they will acquire hardworking, willing employees. Every day, she proves that having vision for herself and for others doesn’t require being able to see.

Gena’s energies and passions focus first and foremost on her family and my career, but they also extend into community involvement and motivational speaking. She is passionate about empowering others, and improving the lives of people with many kinds of disabilities, not just the blind. She helps employers to understand that by hiring people with disabilities they will acquire hardworking, willing employees. Some of her outreach activities have included:

• Current Board Member, Lighthouse for the Blind
• Downtown Berkeley YMCA; Past President
• Volunteer, Girls Inc. of Alameda County
• Past Board Member, Guide Dogs for the Blind
• Past Board Member, The Glaucoma Foundation
• Member, The California Governor's Committee for the Employment of Disabled Persons
• Motivational Speaker, Smith Barney Training on Business Practice Management 
• Keynote Speaker, Guide Dogs for the Blind annual luncheon
• Keynote Speaker, Women of Vision Event
• Keynote Speaker, Munich Reinsurance of America, Inc.
• Speaker, International Foundation for Employee Benefit Plans

Gena Harper’s commitment to meeting life head-on extends to everything she does. Every day, she proves that having vision for herself and for others doesn’t require being able to see.

Article about Gena for more information: https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/for-gena-harper-its-more-than-meets-the-eye/