Ursula Burns

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Ursula Burns, 2007.

Courtesy of Xerox Corporation

Ursula Burnsis an American business executive who served as CEO (2009–16) and chairman (2010–17) of the international document-management and business-services company Xerox Corporation. She was the first African American woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company and the first female to accede to the position of CEO of such a company in succession after another female.

Burns was raised in a low-income housing project on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She was the second of three children raised by a single mother who operated a home day-care centre and took ironing and cleaning jobs to earn money to pay for Burns to attend Cathedral High School, a Roman Catholic preparatory school. Excelling at math, Burns later earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering (1980) from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn. In the same year, she began pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and joined Xerox as a summer mechanical-engineering intern through the company’s graduate engineering program for minorities, which in turn paid a portion of her educational expenses.

After completing a master’s degree in 1981, Burns joined Xerox as a full-time employee and quickly gained a role in product development. From 1992 she progressed through various roles in management and engineering, and in 2000 she became senior vice president of corporate strategic services, a position in which she oversaw production operations. The appointment eventually afforded Burns the opportunity to broaden her leadership in the areas of global research, product development, marketing, and delivery, and she was named president of Xerox in 2007. Two years later she was named CEO, and in 2010 she became chairman of the board.

When Burns took office, she looked to transform Xerox, which was struggling amid declining revenue. To this end, she shifted the focus from products to services, and she oversaw the acquisition (2010) of Affiliated Computer Services, which was involved in outsourcing business services. Her efforts, however, failed to revive Xerox. In 2016 she began the process of spinning off the company’s service holdings into the independent venture Conduent; the transaction was finalized in 2017. Burns stepped down as CEO in 2016, and the following year she resigned as chairman of the board.

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Ursula Burns at the World Innovation Forum in New York City, June 2010.

Courtesy of Xerox Corporation

During this time, Burns held a number of other appointments. In 2009 U.S. Pres. Barack Obama selected her to help lead the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition, a national alliance of more than 1,000 technological organizations striving to improve student participation and performance in the aforementioned subject areas through legislative advocacy; she held the post until 2016. Burns was also a member (2010–16) of the President’s Export Council (PEC), a group of labour, business, and government leaders who advise the president on methods to promote the growth of American exports; she chaired the committee in 2015–16. In addition, Burns served on the board of numerous companies, including Exxon Mobil, Uber, and VEON. The latter, an Amsterdam-based telecommunications provider, named her executive chairman in 2017, and the following year she became chairman and CEO. In 2020, however, she stepped down from both posts. The following year Burns published the memoir Where You Are Is Not Who You Are.