Ursula Burns, Xerox CEO
Ursula Burns is the first African American woman to lead a major U.S. corporation and the first female CEO to take the reins from another woman. A mechanical engineer by training, Burns has a strong understanding of the business and its challenges. She came to the company as a summer intern in 1980, and joined full-time a year later after completing her master’s degree in engineering at Columbia University. Another factor in Burns’ rise has been the strength and depth of Xerox’s commitment to diversity. One-third of Xerox’s 3,819 executives are women and 22% are minorities.
While Burns has much to do to rebuild Xerox’s strength, she’s aware of the significance of what she has already achieved. She once said, “I’m in this job because I believe I earned it through hard work and high performance. Did I get some opportunities early in my career because of my race and gender? Probably. … I went to work for a company that was openly seeking to diversify its workforce. So, I imagine race and gender got the hiring guys’ attention. And then the rest was really up to me.” While other black women have run major divisions, Burns is the first to lead a large public company.
