If Ursula Burns virtually Xeroxed the commencement addresses she delivered in May at Rochester Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, one could hardly blame her.
After all, the intervening week was a bit more hectic than merely adding a line to the RIT script mentioning her promotion to CEO of Xerox.
Norwalk will be on the national stage July 1, when Anne Mulcahy steps out of the Xerox corner office after nearly nine years on the job, and Burns steps in. It reportedly is the first time a Fortune 500 company has hired two women in succession as CEO; and Burns becomes the first black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, according to Catalyst Inc.
Mulcahy did not specify a reason for the decision to retire, which the company disclosed in a surprise announcement before the Xerox”™s annual meeting last month at the company”™s 45 Glover St. headquarters in Norwalk.
While Burns has been seen as a potential successor CEO the past two years after she became company president, no one had predicted the 55-year-old Mulcahy would run the company for only a single business cycle.
Mulcahy became CEO in August 2001 as the high-tech recession of the early decade deepened, and as the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized a probe of Xerox accounting practices under her predecessor Paul Allaire that would result in a $10 million penalty against the company, then based in Stamford.
“I like to say that we were early adopters of SEC scandal,” Mulcahy reportedly joked in a 2004 talk at Stamford Graduate School of Business, which she attended along with Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y.
Mulcahy led a remarkable turnaround at Xerox, reorienting the research powerhouse with an added emphasis on business and technology services, capped by the company”™s 2007 acquisition of Florida-based Global Imaging Systems, which focused on the small and mid-size business market.
Not that Xerox has abandoned its high-tech engineering roots ”“ its new ColorQube solid-ink printer is winning industry plaudits for its crayon-like ink sticks that are loaded in place of plastic cartridges in traditional printers, eliminating spent cartridges from landfills.
“Anne successfully led a multibillion-dollar turnaround of Xerox and transformed the business into an innovative digital technology and services enterprise,” N.J. Nicholas Jr., former CEO of Time Warner Inc. and lead independent director on Xerox”™s board, said in a statement. “She has consistently demonstrated values-based leadership, strong strategic insight, broad expertise and a remarkable ability to create ”˜follower-ship”™ through the respect she earned from Xerox people.”
Mulcahy has been a fixture on Forbes”™ magazine annual list of the world”™s most powerful women, along with Greenwich resident Indra Nooyi, CEO of Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo Inc., ranked ahead of luminaries such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, media titan Oprah Winfrey and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while she was New York”™s junior senator.
Burns, 50, has already been considered a corporate star in her own right, deemed by Forbes more powerful than Queen Elizabeth II, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and CBS news anchor Katie Couric.
If Mulcahy”™s smiling visage has served as the face of Xerox this decade, Burns has been the soul of the company”™s sprawling technology campuses in the Rochester, N.Y. area. She joined Xerox in 1980, four years after Mulcahy. Whereas Mulcahy rose through the sales ranks, Burns was an engineer by training, earning her big break by being named special assistant to Allaire. Burns became senior vice president of corporate strategic services leading manufacturing, and then president two years ago, becoming the first Xerox executive to hold the title since Mulcahy in 2001.
Burns was in upstate New York May 22, giving the commencement keynote at the Rochester Institute of Technology less than a week after delivering the graduation address at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, of which Allaire is an alumnus.
At RIT, Burns reflected on her own 1980 graduation exercises at Polytechnic University ”“ now part of New York University ”“ when she said being CEO of Xerox was the farthest thing from her mind.
“I can assure you that no one at my commencement was pointing at me and predicting that I would become a CEO,” Burns said. “Women presidents of large global companies were nonexistent. Black women presidents of large companies were unimaginable.”
