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Former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns Joins Endeavor Board of Directors

The company will have two women on its board.

Former chair and CEO of Xerox Corp and VEON Ltd. Ursula Burns has joined the board of directors of Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.

The newly public company announced Monday (July 19) that it had added Burns, the first Black woman to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, to its board of directors. The talent agency, formerly known as William Morris Endeavor, now has two female board members, Burns and CEO of Uncle Nearest Inc. Fawn Weaver, TheWrap reports.

Burns said in a statement, "I'm thrilled to join Endeavor's board at this exciting time. Endeavor has long been a leading force in sports and entertainment and a true innovator in the content and events space. I'm looking forward to working alongside the leadership team to build upon the company's incredible momentum and help lay the foundation for many successful years to come."

Burns joined Xerox as a summer intern in 1980 and held leadership posts in multiple departments before being named Chief Executive Officer in 2009.

She served as Xerox's Chairman of the Board and CEO from 2010-2017 and as Chairman of the Board and CEO of VEON Ltd. from 2018-2020. She regularly appears on Fortune and Forbes' lists of the world's most powerful women.

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Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel said, "As a newly public company, we are honored to welcome Ursula to our board of directors at such a transformational time. Ursula is no stranger to leading global companies through change by embracing innovation and harnessing the power of technology — exactly the type of experience that will prove invaluable to us as we start this next chapter."

Endeavor will have to add one more female board member by the end of 2021 to comply with California law. California Senate Bill 826, passed in September 2018, requires all publicly traded companies headquartered in California to have two to three women on their boards by the end of 2021, depending on the board's size.

Companies that don't meet the deadlines will be fined $100,000 for every woman less than the required total on their board.

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