URSULA BURNS

CHAIR & CEO, VEON
FORMER CHAIR & CEO, XEROX CORP.

In 2009, Burns became the first black woman to become CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation when she took the helm of Xerox Corp., the company in which she had ascended through a variety of pivotal roles over three decades—including executive assistant to the president & CEO and vice president of global manufacturing. On grabbing the brass ring, she has said, “I didn’t think when I walked into the company that I would be the CEO. I did expect to be successful, though.” Her high visibility breakthrough at Xerox motivated legions of women of color to double down on their ambitions to reach the C-suite in a major corporation, a notion that previously seemed little more than a whim. Burns is currently the chairman and CEO of VEON, a multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She is on the board of directors of Uber and ExxonMobil.

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