# Henry Ward

> Henry Ward is the co-founder and CEO of Carta, the San Francisco company that started life in 2012 as eShares with a single, stubborn idea: paper stock certificates should be digital. A decade later, his platform tracks ownership for tens of thousands of private companies, thousands of funds, and well over a million equity holders.

- **Role:** CEO and Co-founder at Carta
- **Organizations:** Carta, Secondsight, Reddwerks, BetweenMarkets
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BGS, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Michigan, MSc, Market Finance, EDHEC Business School
- **Known for:** Built Carta from a paper-certificate digitizer into the dominant cap table platform for private companies, Carta named to Forbes' World's Best Cloud Companies, Fast Company's Most Innovative, and Inc.'s Fastest Growing, Platform manages hundreds of billions of dollars in equity across 50,000+ companies and 9,000+ funds

## Career timeline

- **early 2000s** — Sales and operations roles at Silicon Valley software companies including BetweenMarkets and Reddwerks
- **2009-2010** — Earns MSc in Market Finance at EDHEC in France
- **2010** — Founds Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors
- **2012** — Co-founds eShares with Manu Kumar to digitize paper stock certificates
- **2015** — eShares raises Series B led by Spark Capital
- **2017** — eShares raises $42M Series C; rebrands to Carta after buying the name for roughly $75,000
- **2019** — Carta crosses unicorn status
- **2022** — Last large primary round; total funding crosses $1.1B
- **2024** — Testifies before House Financial Services Committee on private market infrastructure
- **2025** — Speaks at Milken Global Conference on 21st century leadership

## Achievements

- Built Carta from a paper-certificate digitizer into the dominant cap table platform for private companies
- Carta named to Forbes' World's Best Cloud Companies, Fast Company's Most Innovative, and Inc.'s Fastest Growing
- Platform manages hundreds of billions of dollars in equity across 50,000+ companies and 9,000+ funds
- Raised more than $1.1B in venture funding across the company's history
- Testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee about private market ownership infrastructure

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Long-form interview with Barry Ritholtz on The Big Picture about Carta's origin and the eShares-to-Carta rename
- **2025-05** — Speaks on '21st Century Lessons in Leadership' at the Milken Global Conference

## Links

- Website: https://carta.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heward/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/henrysward
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/esharesinc

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/henry-ward
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-30