Ursula Burns made history as the first African American woman to earn a top position at a Fortune 500 company when she became the Chief Executive Officer of Xerox in 2009. From a tough childhood to the head of a male-dominated organization, her journey gives hope and inspiration to many women, and especially women of color. She once said “I’m a black lady from Lower East Side of New York. Not a lot intimidates me.”
Burns grew up in a New York public housing project in the 1970s and her parents were Panamanian immigrants. With her father being mostly absent from her life, her mother had the biggest influence and she gifted Burns with tenacity and a passionate work ethic.
Burns was taught early on the importance of education. She was an excellent student and showed a special talent in math. She earned a scholarship and eventually a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in 1980, followed in 1981 by a master’s degree from Columbia University. 1980 was also the year she began her career at Xerox with a summer internship through the graduate engineering program for minorities.
But the turning point happened a few years later at a company meeting where Burns chided publicly the executive VP for displaying a lack of passion about the diversity program. Against all odds, he promoted her to his executive assistant. “I learned from my mother that if you have a chance to speak, you should speak. If you have an opinion, you should make it be known,” she said.
She worked her way up from there and in less than two decades, she became the CEO in 2009, turning the company into a profitable business.
While she stepped down from her position in 2016, she has continued making waves in executive roles at top tech companies. For instance, from 2018 to 2020, she served as CEO of VEON, a multinational telecommunications services company. And now, while she serves as a board director of Diageo, Uber, Waystar, American Express, and Exxon, she also leads the Board Diversity Action Alliance that focuses on diversifying corporate boards.
Burns never misses a chance to emphasize how rewarding a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career can be, for individuals of all backgrounds. She is a founding member of Change the Equation, a non-profit program boosting STEM education, and she has also helped lead the White House’s STEM national program.
Burns has ensured that her success reaches far beyond herself, seeking to serve as a source of inspiration and encouragement to others. In 2020, as a female history maker herself, Burns decided to contribute $1 million to The HistoryMakers, an oral archive that has recorded the stories of Black Americans to immortalize their legacies.