Xerox will be the first Fortune 500 company headed by a black woman when Ursula Burns, 50, takes the reigns this summer.
Burns replaces Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, 56, who told shareholders she would be retiring in July and had picked her lieutenant as her successor.
Burns climbed the corporate ladder at Xerox, beginning as a summer engineering intern in 1980 and rising to president of the printing giant in 2002.
As president, Burns oversaw a large chunk of the company’s operations, including overseas research and development, engineering, manufacturing and marketing.
She helped to build Xerox into the world’s largest maker of high-speed color printers.
John Clendenin, a retired senior executive at Xerox, said Burns will be a great CEO because of her engineering background, her knowledge of manufacturing and her knowledge of Xerox products.
“The strength she brings is that she has worked in all of the manufacturing arms of the company,” said Clendenin, who has known Burns for 30 years. “She brings knowledge of how products are developed, manufactured and brought to market and that makes her unique in a world that is usually dominated by sales, marketing and financial type managers.”