Top African American Women in Business …Other than Oprah

When you think of successful African American women, unless you have been living in a media-free cave for the last 20 years, Oprah springs to mind. While we acknowledge and admire the accomplishments of the talk show host, media mogul and self-made billionaire, it’s a shame that many of us are not equally familiar with other black women who have made a big impact on the world of business. Here we briefly profile ten fantastically accomplished African American women in finance and business. If you don’t know their names yet, you should!

  1. Ursula Burns, President of Xerox. As a Fortune 500 company, Xerox has a great track record of promoting women executives to the highest management positions. Next in line after CEO Anne Mulcahy, Burns has driven efforts to improve the line of products offered by Xerox and supported R&D of new technologies, including Xerox’s new emulsion aggregate toner plant in upstate New York. Under her leadership, Xerox grew by 20% in 2007. Burns was named to her position in April 2007, and also holds a seat on the Board of Directors. Burns joined Xerox as a summer intern in 1980, and worked her way up at Xerox after obtaining a B.S. from Polytechnic Institute of New York and a Master’s in Engineering from Columbia. She also serves on the boards of American Express Corp., Boston Scientific Corp., CASA – The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, National Academy Foundation, National Association of Manufacturers, and the University of Rochester.
  2. Susan Chapman, Global Head of Operations, Citigroup Realty Services. Chapman manages the day-today operations for Citigroup Realty in 96 countries. She holds the No. 2 spot in the business unit, and is responsible for overseeing mergers and acquisitions, retail branch development, real estate administration, strategic projects and global business relationship management.Chapman sits on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, where she received her MBA in 1998. She was named to Black Enterprise magazine’s Hot List for up and coming businesspeople under 40.
  3. Edith Cooper, Head of North American Hedge Fund Distribution, Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities, Goldman Sachs. Cooper was promoted to managing director in 1998, after only 2 years at Goldman Sachs, and made partner in 2000. In London, she co-led the company’s commodity business for Europe and Asia, and in 2004, she co-headed the company’s global clearing and execution in the equity division. Cooper headed the company’s global futures business before rising to her current position. Before working at Goldman, Cooper worked at Banker’s Trust. Cooper graduated from Harvard College and received her MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business. Read more
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Movers and Shakers: East Coast Round-Up

The summer may be the time when things tend to slow down, but for women in the top industries, things have been heating up. Here are some of the women who’ve recently made their way along the executive path:

Financial Services

Suzanne B. Schiavelli was hired as a principal in specialty finance to Bank of America. The only woman in this class of nine new hires, she will serve as a senior member of the equity research platform at Bank of America. According to the Bank of America announcement, Ms. Schiavelli joins from Morgan Stanley where she most recently covered emerging specialty finance stocks. Prior to Morgan Stanley, she worked as an investment banker in the financial institutions group at Lehman Brothers. Ms. Schiavelli received a bachelor of arts in economics from Providence College and a master’s degree in business administration from The Stern School at NYU.

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