Carter Loard Bays (born August 12, 1975)[1] is an American author, composer and television showrunner.

Bays co-created the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother where he served as showrunner, writer and executive producer for all nine seasons.

Bays and Thomas co-founded the band The Solids, who perform the theme song to How I Met Your Mother, "Hey Beautiful".

[4] After graduating from Wesleyan in 1997, Bays and Craig Thomas went on to write for the Late Show with David Letterman.

In 2022, Bays served as executive producer on Hulu's How I Met Your Father,[8] starring Hilary Duff.