Ursula Burns, the first African American women to lead a Fortune 500 company. Her story is a true illustration of possibility and what can be achieved if you work hard, put one foot in front of the other, and keep going.
“Don’t you understand mum?... When they see you, they see the possibility that it could be them or their children.”
Ursula grew up in challenging circumstances. She lived in a dangerous neighbourhood surrounded by drug dealers and gang members, her mother working hard and yet struggling financially. At just 16, Ursula decided it was up to her to get her mother out. It was up to her to improve her family’s circumstances and so recognising her aptitude for maths, she set her sights on chemical engineering, a field that promised lucrative opportunities.
Attending college just up the street so she could keep an eye on things at home, it was during her third summer at college that Ursula went on placement at Xerox. Here her work ethic and talent were recognised, propelling her into increasingly senior roles. Then, 29 years after joining Xerox as an engineering intern, she was offered the role of CEO.
Ursula had made history. She teaches us that yes, you’ll face setbacks, you’ll get knocked down. That is why you must pick something you love. Something that’s worth getting back up for. Have grit, passion, and determination, and you will go far.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Ursula remains deeply connected to the values instilled by her mother. Namely, to leave behind more than you take away. To remember that what you are is not who you are, and finally, that the world can’t happen to you… you have to happen to the world.
Ursula Burns – video transcript
As a child, I had a very small world, my brother, my sister, and my mother. We grew up in a physically very dangerous place. Drug dealers, drug addicts, gang members, they were everywhere, but we had what would have been considered a normal life. It was just a normal life in a very bad place.
By the time I got to school, that's when I realised that my mother was really struggling. My mother's highest salary in her entire life was $4,400. We went to Catholic school and it cost $650 a year. So by the time I was 16, I realised that I had to do something fundamentally different and the entire motivation was to make sure that I could get her out of the neighbourhood that we were living in. And if you're good at math, what do you do? The career that paid the most money after four years of college was chemical engineering. I said, "That's what I'm going to become," and I started to apply to colleges.
It was clear my mother was carrying the weight of the world taking care of this, of her kids. But she looked and appeared to me to be older than she was or more fragile than she was. So my brother, by this time, had gone up to Syracuse University. My younger sister was a disaster. She was on drugs and it was a disaster. And my responsibility was to make sure my mother didn't suffer much more. So I stayed close to home and went to college right up the street, went to college right up the street from where I grew up, and it was the best decision I ever made.
In the undergraduate school, you get all of these placements. And the third summer I worked at Xerox and I went there and it was perfect. They were not concerned about how I looked. They were not highly concerned about how I spoke. I was just, I was rough, but I was really smart and I worked really hard and I was extremely organised and they allowed me to practice what I had learned. Xerox was a perfect match for me. I was a perfect match for the company. They said, "We want you to come to work for us but we would prefer if you go to graduate school." So I said, "Sure." So I took the job and that catapulted me. I'd been in the company now for seven or eight years. They give me a business to run. They made me a vice president and general manager. From that, they literally said, "We want you to go run this massive business." That moment, I realised I could probably run this place.
When I became CEO, the first call that I got after the public announcement was from the New York Times. The entire story was, you are the first African-American woman CEO. Fortune did a cover on it. I got calls from Magic Johnson, from Al Sharpton, from Jesse Jackson, George Bush called me, Bill Clinton called me, and I'm like, "Wow." So there was this unbelievable uproar outside. Literally, I'd be walking in New York City and people would stop me and they would say, "You're Ursula Burns." Literally, it happened all the time. And my daughter's the one who said to me, "Don't you understand, mum? Don't you understand how big a deal you are to these people? You are them. When they see you, they see the possibility that it could be them or their children." This was not only about me, it was about them.
People were looking at me, not because they said, "Oh my God, this woman had this brilliant career. You mean to tell me that you had a mother, no father, you kind of lucked your way through things, work hard, but you know, lucky here, lucky here, connection here, this thing there and you made it here just by literally putting one foot in front of the other?" Yeah. And it's possible to get there. You don't have to hit it perfectly the first time. You just have to kind of understand it as possible to be done and then work hard on getting it better. And that's one of the most amazing things about engineering.
You're going to get knocked down over and over and over again but you have to pick something that you do that you love so much, that you stand up every single time. You have to be passionate about it and stick with it. So this idea of grit, you got to kind of do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.
My mother's focus for our life was that we did a couple of things. Number one, she said this over and over and over again. It's one of my favourite statements. "You must leave behind more than you take away." Second thing she said all the time was, "Where you are is not who you are, and remember that when you're rich and famous." And the third thing that she said all the time was, "The world can't happen to you, Max." My middle name is Maxine. She would say it all the time, "The world can't happen to you, Max. You have to happen to the world." So my mother's assessment of me right now would be, jury is still out, but you're doing okay.
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Ursula Burns became the first African American woman to lead a Fortune 500 company.
She joined Xerox as an engineering intern in 1980, taking on multiple roles within the company before becoming the CEO in 2009.
U.S. President Barack Obama appointed her to lead the White House National STEM program in 2009 to improve student participation and performance in STEM subjects.
She remains an active campaigner to increase diversity in boardrooms.
