Anne M. Mulcahy

There is an explosion of information happening, yet people demand quick access to relevant content that cuts through the clutter.

I learned how to be a learner. When you get in a job, the tendency is to say, 'I've got to know it. I've got to give direction to others. I'm in this job because I'm better and smarter.' I always took a different view, that the key was to identify the people who really knew and learn from them.

The day I was announced as CEO, I think the stock dropped another 20%.

My dad was an editor and a writer, and that's actually what I aspired to be.

If you're a global company you are going to have jobs overseas. The reality is if we start taxing those jobs at a rate that makes them noncompetitive in those markets, the reality is that we're going to lose business.

I got a journalism degree. I started doing journalism - I interned at 'Cosmopolitan' magazine in the 1970s, which probably wasn't the best place for me, and I spent six or nine months freelancing. Anyway, I wasn't that good at it.

I worked in sales. It was definable, it had a quantifiable approach to accomplishment that had a great deal of importance to me. It had a degree of clarity that I loved. And of course, it was core.

We're living in a different world now in terms of employee needs, and companies have to offer alternative methods for getting the work done. Even under the most difficult circumstances you can have creative flexibility.

Work/life benefits allow companies meaningful ways for responding to their employees' needs; they can be a powerful tool for transforming a workforce and driving a business' success.

Something as simple as better breastfeeding could save a million children a year.

Educated and productive young people are needed to help lift their countries out of poverty and create a wealthier, more secure world.

You should be accumulating really great relationships throughout your career.

Customers require the effective integration of technologies to simplify their workflow and boost efficiency.

Most of my career has been in sales. I spend 50% or more of my time with customers and employees, and I can't wait for it to be more than 50%.

My dad was an editor and a writer, and that's really where I would have liked to have gone. But the genetic link was not intact there, so I wound up going into business. But I love to write, still. I'm not a great writer, but I enjoy it.

I'm at the gym at 6, so I'm usually in my office by 7:15. And I try to not schedule a lot of meetings before 8. So I've got that first hour to get myself organized for the day and to make sure that I've structured what I want to do.

There's nothing quite as powerful as people feeling they can have impact and make a difference. When you've got that going for you, I think it's a very powerful way to implement change.

When parents are confident that their children will live, they have fewer of them. They invest more in each child's food, health and education.

I left Xerox for the non-profit sector because it was clear to me that only public/private partnerships can pull off a turnaround plan at the scale we need to tackle global poverty.

When you get in a job, the tendency is to say, 'I've got to know it. I've got to give direction to others. I'm in this job because I'm better and smarter.' I always took a different view, that the key was to identify the people who really knew and learn from them.

People ask my mother whether she had any idea that I'd be CEO of a company some day, and she would say, 'Absolutely not. Totally out of the realm of possibility.' There was certainly nothing that would have been very predictable in my upbringing.

The hardware business is all about per-unit manufacturing cost and functionality. The services business is less asset-intensive and more dependent on people.

Entire families work for Xerox.

Whenever an earthquake or tsunami takes thousands of innocent lives, a shocked world talks of little else.

One of the things we often miss in succession planning is that it should be gradual and thoughtful, with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective, so that it's almost a non-event when it happens.