There are not many female CEOs of companies around. Although women are traditionally underrepresented in technology professions, there were a number of high profile CEOs in the US in recent years. We can think here of Carly Fiorina, formerly of HP, and Anne M. Mulcahy, of Xerox. Now Xerox has entered history books by appointing the first African American female CEO to lead a major US corporation: Ursula Burns. Interestingly enough she is also the first female CEO who succeeded another female CEO.

 

Burns had a long-term career at Xerox. Burns, who holds degrees from NYU and Columbia University, joined Xerox in 1980 first as a summer intern and then in product development and planning. In 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services and in 2007 she became president of Xerox.

Business Week suggests that part of reason that Xerox appointed two female CEOs in a row is Xerox’s commitment to diversity. 30% of Xerox’s executives are women and 22% are minorities. Xerox has a long tradition of affinity networks. Xerox also had a Executive Diversity Council early on. In addition there are leadership programmes that foster diversity and managers are evaluated in their performance reviews on their ability to recruit, retain and promote underrepresented groups. If they fall short of expectations their chances of promotion are diminished and they pay is negatively affected. This shows that diversity programmes do have an impact – even though it might take decades for them to unfold their power.