“I am a black woman, I do not play golf, I do not belong to or go to country clubs, I do not like NASCAR, I do not listen to country music, and I have a master's degree in engineering. I, like a typical New Yorker, speak very fast, with an accent and vernacular that is definitely New York City, definitely Black. So when someone says I’m going to introduce you to the next CEO of Xerox, and the options are lined up against a wall, I would be the first one voted off the island.”

Burns writes about her journey from a tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to the corporate world. She credits her success to her Panamanian mother, Olga, a licensed child-care provider whose highest annual income was $4,400.

Burns recounts how she took advantage of the opportunities and social programs created by the Civil Rights and Women’s movements to pursue engineering at Polytechnic Institute of New York.

Her classmates and colleagues—almost all white males—“couldn’t comprehend how a Black girl could be as smart, and in some cases, smarter than they were," she said.

Burns' thirty-five-year career at Xerox was all about fixing things, from cutting millions to save the company from bankruptcy to a $6 billion acquisition to secure its future. She also worked closely with President Barack Obama as a lead on his STEM initiative and Chair of his Export Council.

She compares the impact of the pandemic to the financial crisis of 2007, and worries about the workers whose lives are being upended by technology.