Who was the first African-American woman to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company?

Ursula Burns was the first African-American woman to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She took over as chief executive of Xerox in 2009, succeeding Anne Mulcahy.

Burns joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical-engineering intern and built her career through product development, planning, and senior management. Her rise was notable not only because she became CEO, but also because she succeeded another woman—an unusual milestone in Fortune 500 leadership at the time.

As Xerox’s CEO, Burns led the company through a major strategic transformation. In 2010, Xerox completed its acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services, strengthening its business-services operations. She later guided the 2016 separation of Xerox’s document-technology business from Conduent, which focused on business-process services.

Burns remained Xerox’s chairwoman while serving as CEO and stepped down from the chief executive position in December 2016. A common mistake is to confuse “first African-American woman Fortune 500 CEO” with the first Black woman to lead any major corporation; the quiz’s wording refers specifically to the Fortune 500 ranking.