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Ursula Burns made history in 2009 when she became the first Black woman to serve as chief executive of a Fortune 500 company. That company was Xerox, and Burns had been working there since 1981, when she joined as a mechanical engineering intern fresh out of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.
But the Xerox years only tell part of the story. After stepping down as chairman in 2017, Burns co-founded a private equity firm now managing $5 billion, took the helm of a global telecom operator and became chairwoman of a CEO advisory firm valued at more than $2 billion. Burns grew up in a housing project on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her mother ran a daycare out of the family home to fund her daughter's Catholic school education. That upbringing shaped a career built on operational discipline.
Here are six companies behind her multimillion-dollar empire.
1. Integrum Holdings
Integrum is the company that best reflects where Burns is now. She co-founded the private equity firm in 2021 alongside Tagar Olson, a former partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Richard Kunzer. The firm invests in technology-enabled services companies across insurance, fintech, payments and traditional financial services.
Its first fund, Integrum Capital Partners LP, closed at $1.1 billion, surpassing its original target. In October 2025, the firm closed its second fund at $2.5 billion, significantly oversubscribed, with backing from sovereign wealth funds, pension plans and investment consultants worldwide. Integrum now manages approximately $5 billion in assets and has made investments in six companies to date, with equity commitments ranging from $100 million to $1.2 billion per deal. Substantially all Fund I investors re-upped, many at a multiple of their original commitment size.
2. Teneo Holdings
Burns serves as Non-Executive Chairwoman of Teneo, a global CEO advisory firm founded in 2011 by Declan Kelly, Paul Keary and Doug Band. She joined the firm as a senior advisor in 2017 and was later elevated to the chair.
Teneo provides strategic communications, restructuring, management consulting, financial advisory and corporate governance services. Majority owned by CVC Capital Partners, the firm was valued at approximately $2.3 billion in 2025, with annual revenues on pace to reach $750 million. It operates out of more than 40 offices in over 20 countries and employs more than 1,600 people. Burns shapes governance and strategic direction at the firm from the chair.
3. VEON Ltd
Burns took over VEON, a multinational telecom operator, first as chairwoman in 2017. When CEO Jean-Yves Charlier resigned in 2018, Burns assumed his duties and was formally appointed chief executive in December of that year while retaining the chair.
VEON provides mobile and broadband connectivity across Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan through brands including Jazz, Kyivstar, Beeline and Banglalink. The company reported trailing twelve-month revenue of $4.23 billion. Burns led VEON through compliance overhauls and corporate restructuring until stepping down in early 2020. Her CEO tenure lasted roughly 14 months, but the governance changes she drove outlasted her time at the top.
4. Impact X Capital Partners
Burns is a founding member of Impact X Capital Partners, a London-based venture capital firm launched in 2018 by Eric Collins. The fund was created to invest in companies led by underrepresented founders, with a particular focus on people of colour and women.
At the time of its founding, less than 1% of venture capital went to founders of colour and less than 4% to women-led teams. In 2024, the firm announced plans to raise 100 million pounds for its second fund, with early backing from Bank of America, the Visa Foundation and Atomico. Burns holds equity and helped establish its investment thesis from the ground up.
5. CleanCo
Burns is an investor and board member at CleanCo, a London-based premium low-alcohol spirits brand founded in 2019 by Spencer Matthews and Justin Hicklin. She participated in the company's 7 million-pound funding round in 2021, putting personal capital into the fast-growing low- and no-alcohol category. CleanCo produces spirits designed to taste like their full-strength equivalents but with a fraction of the alcohol content. The investment shows a side of Burns less visible in her private equity and governance work: a willingness to back early-stage consumer brands with personal capital.
6. Xerox Corporation
No account of Burns' business holdings is complete without Xerox. She joined as a summer intern in 1980 and rose through the ranks of manufacturing and engineering leadership before being named CEO in 2009. Shortly after taking charge, she led the company's largest acquisition, the $6.4 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services, which transformed Xerox from a document technology business into a services-and-technology hybrid. In 2016, she oversaw the split into two publicly traded companies: the new Xerox Corporation and Conduent Incorporated, a business process outsourcing firm that debuted with roughly $6.7 billion in annual revenue. Burns served as chairman of the board until 2017, closing out a 35-year run at the company.
