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Ursula Burns CEO – Xerox Corporation

Having grown up with my father being a financial executive with Xerox, and I have twelve years experience working for Xerox, thus being part of the” Xerox Family” or a Xeroid. I was interested in learning more about the recently appointed CEO, Ursula Burns.

She was raised by a single mother in a New York City housing project. Despite all odds she obtained a Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of NYU in 1980 and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University the following year.

Ursula Burns, like many others is a lifer with Xerox, she started he journey with Xerox as a summer intern while she was working for her master’s degree then joined the company full time. She worked various rolls in product development throughout her twenties. In 1990 she took a position as the Executive Assistant to a then Senior Executive Officer. She thought of this position as an Administrative Assistant position and felt she was at a dead end with the company. She quickly moved thru the ranks to become the Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer. In 2000 she was well on her way up the Xerox corporate ladder in the roll as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategic Services. She then took on the broader role of leading Xerox’s global research and product development. In April 2007, Ursula Burns was named President of Xerox (#2 position). At that time she was also elected a member of the company’s board of directors. For the next three years as president she worked closely with the then CEO Anne Mulcahy.

Ursula Burns has been with the company for 30 years and was named CEO of Xerox in July of 2009 and assumed the role of Chairman of the company in May, 2010. Not only is she the first female to succeed a female CEO of a company the size of Xerox, she is the first African-American female CEO of a fortune five hundred company. Ursula Burns was ranked 9th in...