Ursula Burns - Former CEO of Xerox
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
PanamaINDUSTRY
Document management and business servicesTOP ACHIEVEMENTS
Ursula Burns is a Panama-born American business executive who is best known as the first African American woman to hold the role of CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She is also actively involved in a range of community activities such as providing leadership counsel to non-profit organisations and serving as board director of Change the Equation, an organisation focused on improving STEM education in the United States. Burns is also regularly called upon to deliver commencement addresses at universities.
EARLY LIFE
Born to Panamian immigrants,Ursula Burns was raised in a low-cost area where her mother ran a day-care centre at home and offered ironing and cleaning services. Burns attended Cathedral High School where she excelled at maths. After school, she enrolled at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University where she earning a bachelors’ degree in mechanical engineering. Her next step was to enrol at Columbia University to achieve a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. During this time Burns joined Xerox as an intern.RISE TO SUCCESS
Ursula Burns completed her second degree in 1981 and accepted a full-time role at Xerox. Here she progressed through various roles in engineering and management. In 2000 she became the senior VP of corporate strategic services. This gave her the opportunity to develop her leadership in a range of areas leading to her appointment as president of Xerox in 2007. In 2009 Burns achieved the role of CEO and in 2010 she became chairman of the board. Burns stepped down from her role at Xerox in 2016 but continues to serve as board member of VEON, Diageo and Uber.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
• Burns was the first female to take on the role of a female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.• Raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a low-income housing project.
• Listed several times by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the world.
• Ranked as one of ‘America’s Top 50 Women in Tech’ by Forbes in 2018.
