Strong Black Woman of the Week: Ursula Burns

Ursula M. Burns is Chairman and CEO at Xerox. She is the first African American woman to serve as the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company and she is the first woman to succeed another woman as a CEO of a Fortune 500 Company. 

Courtesy of Xerox

She holds mechanical engineering degrees from NYU and Columbia.

Ms. Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a summer mechanical engineering intern. Throughout her tenure at Xerox, she oversaw manufacturing, product development, logistical functions, and engineering. She led Xerox in its largest acquisition to date with a $6.4 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services in 2009.

"We all need to be more impatient with the status quo. I believe we all need to shift the emphasis in our thinking...from why we can't create more jobs to how we can create more jobs, from why we can't compete to how we can compete, from why hunger and poverty and injustice exist in the world to how they can be eliminated. In other words, we all need to be a little more impatient."--Ursula M. Burns


She is #7 on Fortune's  "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" list and #17 on Forbes "The 100 Women Who Run the World" list.

In 2009, President Obama appointed Ms. Burns to help lead the White House national program on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Ms. Burns was appointed vice chair for the President's Export Council in March 2010. In addition, Ms. Burns is on the short list to join the Obama administration as Secretary of Commerce.

Read more about Chairwoman Burns here.

Racists and Sexists Have a Forum on Yahoo Answers

Okay, so we have 'black people' in our Google alert emails (among other terms) and some of the things people ask on Yahoo Answers are ridiculous.

These are just the ones we saw within the last 24 hours:

Why do many Black people believe they are beautiful enough to date?

 

Why do women think they are entilted to “equal pay”?     (Yes, 'entilted')

Granted, most of these questions have been deleted by Yahoo but they are still pretty telling. 

We are starting a running tally of these on Twitter. 

You can follow the madness @SBWomanBlog. 

The White House Boys Club - No Girls Allowed

At least Mitt Romney had "binders full of women."  

The White House recently posted a picture of President Obama and his top advisers. And nary a lady is present. Although you may be inclined to expect more diversity from a president who appointed two female Supreme Court justices, it seems that the White House is simply a boys' club.

To be fair, the White House does employ females; however, it pays those female employees 18% less than their male counterparts. Check out the White House 2011 Annual Report to Congress for a breakdown of staff salaries. Based on the Annual Report, the median income for female White House staffers was $60,000 compared to $71,000 for male staffers.

Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton's 2008 concession speech remains true - because the White House is the hardest glass ceiling to crack. The door remains closed for women who want to be seated at the big kids' table.  

Read more here.