Ursula Burns, (born September 20, 1958, New York, New York, U.S.), American business executive who served as CEO (2009–16) and chairman (2010–17) of the international document-management and business-services company Xerox Corporation. She was the first African American woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 500 company and the first female to accede to the position of CEO of such a company in succession after another female.

Burns was raised in a low-income housing project on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She was the second of three children raised by a single mother who operated a home day-care centre and took ironing and cleaning jobs to earn money to pay for Burns to attend Cathedral High School, a Roman Catholic preparatory school.

Excelling at math, Burns later earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering (1980) from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn. In the same year, she began pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and joined Xerox as a summer mechanical-engineering intern through the company’s graduate engineering program for minorities, which in turn paid a portion of her educational expenses.

After completing a master’s degree in 1981, Burns joined Xerox as a full-time employee and quickly gained a role in product development. From 1992 she progressed through various roles in management and engineering, and in 2000 she became senior vice president of corporate strategic services, a position in which she oversaw production operations. The appointment eventually afforded Burns the opportunity to broaden her leadership in the areas of global research, product development, marketing, and delivery, and she was named president of Xerox in 2007. Two years later she was named CEO, and in 2010 she became chairman of the board.