17th Annual Mid-Level Managers' Symposium - Executive ...

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2011 Award Recipients Shine Continued from Page 1
ELC’s 2011 Achievement Award recipient is Ursula M. Burns,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Xerox Corporation
Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a
mechanical engineering summer intern
and later assumed roles in product
development and planning. From 1992
through 2000, Burns led several business
teams including the office color
and fax business and office network
printing business. In 2000, she was
named senior vice president, Corporate
Strategic Services, heading up manufacturing
and supply chain operations.
She then took on the broader role of
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 assumed the role
of chairman of the company on May
20, 2010.
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. Burns
was named by President Barack
Obama to help lead the White House
national program on STEM (science,
technology, engineering and math) in
November 2009 and was appointed
vice chair of the President’s Export
Council in March 2010.
ELC’s 2011 Alvaro Martins Heritage Award recipient is Hazel R. O’Leary,
President of Fisk University
O’Leary was the first Board Chair of
The Executive Leadership Council and
the first female secretary of the U.S.
Department of Energy as member of
President William Jefferson Clinton’s
cabinet. In a Wall Street Journal article,
she was quoted as saying, “In the public
sector I’ve regulated industry
broadly, in the private sector, I’ve been
forced to live with those regulations
and, perhaps more importantly, I’ve
seen how those regulations—if not
carefully crafted and balanced—can
impact jobs and lives and economies of
people who expected and hoped for
better from their government.”
O’Leary, a native of Newport News,
Virginia, attended high school in New
Jersey and graduated with honors from
Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
She received a law degree from
Rutgers University and worked as an
assistant prosecutor in Essex County,
New Jersey, and assistant attorney general
in that state before moving to
Washington, D.C., where she was a
partner in the accounting firm of Coopers
& Lybrand.
She was an advocate for the disadvantaged
as general counsel to the Community
Services Administration under
President Gerald Ford and also served as
director of the Federal Energy Administration’s
Office of Consumer Affairs during
that period of service to the nation.
In the U.S. Department of Energy, created
under the administration of Jimmy
Carter, she supervised a staff of more
than two thousand lawyers, accountants,
and engineers in the Economic
Regulatory Administration that
enforced price controls on various
forms of energy. Environmental groups
and energy executives credited
O’Leary with developing some of the
federal government’s conservation
programs, including paying for the
insulation of homes of low-income
families.
Throughout her career, Mrs. O’Leary
has balanced her skills in administration
with her concern and advocacy for
the disadvantaged and underrepresented.
Please join the ELC in honoring our
extraordinary award recipients on
October 20 th .