Anne Mulcahy

Anne Mulcahy — Anne M. Mulcahy was born on October 21, 1952. She is former chairwoman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation. She was named CEO of Xerox on August 1, 2001, and chairwoman on January 1, 2002. In addition to the Xerox board, she has been a member of the boards of directors of Catalyst, Citigroup Inc., Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd. and Target Corporation.

She has been selected as ‘CEO of the Year 2008’ by Chief Executive magazine. She announced her retirement as CEO on 21 May 2009 prior to the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

Early life and education

Mulcahy was born October 21, 1952, in Rockville Centre, New York, USA. In 1974, she received her B.A. in English and Journalism from Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y. and a Masters in Business Administration from The Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.

Career at Xerox

Mulcahy joined Xerox as a field sales representative in 1976 and rose through the ranks. From 1992-1995, Mulcahy was vice president for human resources, responsible for compensation, benefits, human resource strategy, labor relations, management development and employee training. Mulcahy became chief staff officer in 1997 and corporate senior vice president in 1998. Prior to that, she served as vice president and staff officer for Customer Operations, covering South America and Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and China.

Though never intent on running Xerox, Anne Mulcahy was selected by the board of directors in 2001. When she became CEO on Aug 1, 2001 the stock price was $8.25, and on Jan 1, 2002 when she became chairwoman the stock was $10.05. On May 21, 2009, the day she announced her retirement as CEO, the stock closed at $6.82. She claims that duty and loyalty from being with the company for so long compelled her to help the company.

Later in her tenure, Anne cut the workforce by 30% and eliminated the desktop portion of Xerox. Visiting offices all over the nation, she attempted to boost morale and help the rest of the organization see how hard she was working, hoping for a mirror effect.

Anne Mulcahy currently serves on four other Board of Directors besides Xerox. She also serves on Catalyst, Citigroup, Fuji Xerox and Target Corp. A letter sent to Citi shareholders on the 26th of March 2009 by American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees requested that shareholders vote against re-electing six of their directors. These where mainly the directors on the Audit & Risk Management Committee. Mulcahy is one of those directors being singled out for termination.

Magazine Opinion

The Wall Street Journal named Mulcahy one of 50 women to watch in 2005 and Forbes Magazine ranked her at the sixth position among the Most Powerful Women in America in 2005. In 2009, she was ranked 15th. In 2008, she was selected by U.S. News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders.