A Conversation with Ursula Burns
On February 13, 2012 the Gallatin Business Club (GBC) hosted Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, at the Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts. At the event, Ursula joined GBC President, Jon Chan, in a conversation about some of the most pressing issues we face, including leadership on the global stage, education in America, and the rise of entrepreneurship
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Ursula Burns

Chairman & CEO, Xerox Corporation

Ursula M. Burns is chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation. With sales approaching $23 billion, Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) is the world’s leading enterprise for business process and document management.

When Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern, the company was the leader in the global photocopying market.  As she later assumed roles in product development and planning, the company was securing its leadership position in digital document technologies.  From 1992 through 2000, Burns, at a pivotal point in the company’s history, led several business teams including the company’s color business and office network printing business.

In 2000, Burns was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services, heading up manufacturing and supply chain operations.  Alongside then-CEO Anne Mulcahy, Burns worked to restructure Xerox through its turnaround to emerge as a leader in color technology and document services.  A key factor in the company’s turnaround was its research and development of new products and technologies, and at the time Burns was responsible for leading Xerox’s global research as well as product development, marketing and delivery.  In April 2007, Burns was named president of Xerox, expanding her leadership to also include the company’s IT organization, corporate strategy, human resources, corporate marketing and global accounts.  At that time, she was also elected a member of the company’s Board of Directors.

Burns was named chief executive officer in July 2009 and shortly after, made the largest acquisitions in Xerox history, the $6.4 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services, catapulting the company’s presence in the $500 billion business services market and extending the company’s reach into diverse areas of business process and IT outsourcing.

On May 20, 2010, Burns became chairman of the company, leading the 140,000 people of Xerox who serve clients in more than 160 countries.  Building on Xerox’s legacy of innovation, they’re enabling workplaces – from small businesses to large global enterprises — to simplify the way work gets done so they can focus more on what matters most: their real business.

Burns earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Polytechnic Institute of NYU and a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.

In addition to the Xerox board, she is a board director of the American Express Corporation.  Burns also provides leadership counsel to community, educational and non-profit organizations including FIRST – (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), National Academy Foundation, MIT, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, among others.  She is a founding board director of Change the Equation, which focuses on improving the U.S.’s education system in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  In March 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Burns vice chair of the President’s Export Council.

Jon H.M. Chan

President, Gallatin Business Club

Jon Chan is currently a fourth-year student at New York University within the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. His academic concentration is in Complex Systems Analysis, an interdisciplinary field  concerned with how complex systems exhibit emergent and self-organizing behavior. His particular specialization is in social systems related to modern business such as corporations, economies, and social technologies. He is currently President of the Gallatin Business Club (GBC), one of New York University’s fastest growing student organizations focused on interdisciplinary approaches to business. As President of the GBC, he helped start the Albert Gallatin Founder’s Fund, New York University’s first student-run entrepreneurship competition that gives up to 5 student teams $1,000 in seed funding for a chance to win $10,000 for their venture

Jon is also an engineer. He built Friidum (pronounced like ‘freedom’) in 2010, a social networking platform that combines social, location, and availability data to provide personal relationship management. He was featured in the New York Post for his work in app development in connection with his background in iPhone Programming. In addition to his student roles in technology and business, he is currently an NYU Admissions Ambassador, Kairos Global Fellow, IVOH Youth Fellow, and board member of Tech@NYU. Jon was previously chosen as one of NYU’s University Leadership Honors Students, a varsity member of the NYU Mock Trial National Championship Team, and a university nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship. After graduation, he plans on taking the time to travel before working full-time as a Business Technology Analyst with Deloitte Consulting.

Susanne Wofford

Dean, Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Susanne L. Wofford is the Dean of the Gallatin School. Before coming to Gallatin, Professor Wofford taught at Yale University and the University of Wisconsin (Madison), where she most recently served as Director of the Center for the Humanities and as the Mark Eccles Professor of English, having formerly been Chair of the Divisional Committee for Arts and Humanities and Director of Graduate Studies in English. She has been a member of the faculty of the Bread Loaf School of English since 1989 and was a Visiting Professor at both Harvard University and Princeton University.

A distinguished scholar of epic poetry and of Renaissance and early modern literature, Professor Wofford is the recipient of many prizes and honors, including the University of Wisconsin Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; the University of Wisconsin Romnes Fellowship; the Hilldale Award for Collaborative Research, UW-Madison; the Robert Frost Chair at the Bread Loaf School of English; the Isabel MacCaffrey Prize (awarded by the Spenser Society); the William Cline Devane Medal for Distinguished Teaching at Yale University; the Sarai Ribicoff Award for the Encouragement of Teaching in Yale College; and the Yale College-Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. She was also appointed to the Charles B. G. Murphy Chair while at Yale and, as a graduate student, won a Mellon Fellowship, a Whiting Fellowship, a Danforth Fellowship, and a Marshall scholarship. Currently a member of the Modern Language Association’s Executive Committee for the Division on Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature, excluding Shakespeare, she has served as the President of the Shakespeare Association of America and serves or has served on the boards of the International Spenser Society, American Comparative Literature Association, and the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes. She is a cofounder and current member of the steering committee of the Theater Without Borders International Collaborative. Her research interests include Shakespeare, Spenser, Renaissance and classical epic, comparative European drama, and narrative and literary theory.

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