John shares his journey from young hustler to urban fashion icon.

This week on The Urban Business Roundtable, UBR contributor Renita Young speaks with urban fashion innovator and branding guru Daymond John, who may be best known as one of the “sharks” looking for a bite into his next lucrative venture on the hit ABC business competition reality show Shark Tank, where he listened to investment proposals from budding entrepreneurs. John shares his journey from an industrious young hustler from the community of Hollis in Queens, N.Y. to become  a founder of the groundbreaking FUBU (“For Us, By Us”) urban clothing line and one of the nation’s most recognized experts on branding for business success.

READ: FUBU Founder Talks About Building Your Brand

John, a headliner at the 2010 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, offers his marketing expertise to some of the world’s leading companies, as well as celebrity and business figures. He is also the author of the books The Brand Within and Display of Power. John’s story offers compelling evidence of the value of tenacity, drive, determination and the will to win as important elements of outstanding entrepreneurship.

Chick shares how to reveal your genius.

Also on this week’s edition of The Urban Business Roundtable, our Executive Producer TaQuoya Kennedy speaks with professional coach Stephanie Chick. The author of the book Deliver The Package: Simple Truths to Help Set Your Genius Free, Chick coaches executives at Pepsi, Hewlett-Packard, American Express, Time Warner, Intel and Xerox. Chick joins Kennedy at the roundtable to share tips for entrepreneurs who want to deliver their best and reveal their genius.

My “Alfred’s Notepad” commentary will highlight two great opportunities for UBR listeners, one for established entrepreneurs and the other for new and aspiring business owners, tied to the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, slated for May 22-25, 2011 in Atlanta. First, nominations are now being accepted for the 2011 Black Enterprise Small Business Awards. This is an excellent opportunity for you or a deserving business person you know to gain national recognition for outstanding business achievement. Many past honorees, including CyberSynchs CEO Amos Winbush and Sundial Creations Co-founder Richelieu Dennis, have been featured on The Urban Business Roundtable. The deadline for nominations is March 15, 2011.

Second, entrepreneurs attending the conference can enter the 2011 Black Enterprise Elevator Pitch Competition for a chance to win prizes including $10,000 in capital for the best business pitch. The deadline for contest entries is March 31, 2011. Once again I’ll also be sharing a special discount code that will allow UBR listeners to knock more than 50% off of the cost of registration for the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference, slated for May 22-25, 2011 in Atlanta, if they register by February 12.

In addition, every week on UBR, you’ll get motivation and inspiration from author and entrepreneurial icon Farrah Gray, a weekly wrap-up of business news from USA Today Business Correspondent Charisse Jones, our Patient Investor Report from Ariel Investments and key economic intelligence for small business owners from our UBR Economists Derrick Collins and Rasheed Carter.

If you have a question you want answered or a topic you want addressed on The Urban Business Roundtable, send me an e-mail at edmonda@blackenterprise.com or to me at Twitter or Facebook.

Alfred Edmond Jr.

Alfred Edmond Jr. is the senior VP/editor-at-large of Black Enterprise and the host of the Urban Business Roundtable, a weekly radio show, sponsored by Ariel Investments, airing CST Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. on WVON-AM 1690, the Talk of Chicago. You can also listen live online at WVON.com. Check back each Wednesday for The UBR Morning Post, which features additional resources, advice and information from and about the topics, entrepreneurs and experts featured on the show.

VIDEO: Watch the Power Player profile of Ursula Burns on the Black Enterprise Business Report

In celebration of our 40th anniversary, Black Enterprise is taking a look both forward and backward at the world of black business. Our list of 40 “Titans: The Most Powerful African Americans in Business–and How They Shaped Our World” recognizes and pays homage to the entrepreneurs and business men and women who paved the way for all of us. Follow our countdown of the most important black business leaders of the four decades since Black Enterprise Magazine was founded in August 1970.

These are the men and women who fought the odds, suffered setbacks, regrouped, and eventually emerged victorious. Whether they conducted business from their own offices or the executive suite, their professional excellence, deal-making prowess, and unwavering advocacy converted promise into channels of prosperity and levers of power. These are the pioneers who withstood the elements—institutional racism, resistance from the business establishment, and lack of resources—to plant a flag on their own patch of territory.

These are The Titans: bold leaders who shattered conventional modes of commerce. Because of their contributions over the past 40 years, the world of business has been transformed forever.

Be sure to pick up the commemorative 40th anniversary August 2010 issue of Black Enterprise, which contains the entire Titans list.

Kevin M. Warren

Xerox Corp. named Kevin M. Warren president of its U.S. Solutions Group Wednesday, succeeding Doug Lord, who is retiring after 34 years with the company.

Warren, who was named one of Black Enterprise’s “100 Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America” in 2009, had served as chairman, president and chief executive officer of Xerox Canada since 2007. He will now move to the U.S. to lead the technology company’s direct sales force that markets and sells Xerox systems and services across the country. Warren will report to Russell Peacock, president, Xerox North America. The appointment is effective July 1.

Prior to his position with Xerox Canada, Warren led the transition team for Xerox’s 2007 acquisition of Global Imaging Systems and had been head of Xerox’s U.S. eastern sales operations. Warren began his Xerox career in 1984 as a sales trainee in Washington D.C.

Warren, 47,  is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program and earned a bachelor of science degree in finance from Georgetown University. He is an advisory board member of the first international chapter of the National Black MBA Association, and sits on the national board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. He also is a member of the Executive Leadership Council and the Young Presidents’ Organization, and is a board member of the Conference Board of Canada.

The watershed event in July 2009, however, may have signaled the beginning of a new era. Ursula M. Burns was named CEO of Xerox Corp., becoming not only the first African American woman to run one of the largest publicly traded companies, but also being placed among the world’s most influential chief executives, male or female.

Now Burns has achieved another distinction. She headlines Black Enterprise’s latest roster of movers and shakers: the 75 Most Powerful Women in Business. Although in a class by herself, Burns is in good company with top corporate executives who control billion-dollar budgets and manage thousands of employees at leading public and private companies, as well as BE 100s CEOs who lead some of the nation’s largest black-owned businesses. As such, the women featured on the following pages have done more than shatter ceilings—glass and concrete—in male-dominated industries. These executives and entrepreneurs are positioned to change global commerce, from revolutionizing technology and media to transforming retail and finance. Their emergence represents the dawning of a new day.

When Ursula M. Burns was promoted to senior vice president at Norwalk, Connecticut-based Xerox Corp. in 2000, she received a grave diagnosis from her doctor. He told her to enjoy the new position because it was going to be temporary. “You’re going to kill yourself,” he warned the overweight, out-of-shape executive. Recalling her death sentence, Burns remarked, “He didn’t have to say it twice.” Immediately, she changed her diet and started running, eventually becoming competitive enough to race in 5K runs.

Burns is quite adept at fixing problems and changing the course of dire situations. An engineer by training, she thrives on such challenges. Over the last two decades, she developed a reputation at the


company as a technologically focused, customer-oriented change agent. And she needed to draw on those skills when Xerox faced its own life-and-death struggle.

In May 2000, then-CEO Richard Thoman, the first “outsider” to head the organization, was forced to retire after a 14-month tenure that resulted in a fourth quarter profit drop of 52%. Stock prices had fallen 60%. The company had already cut 10,000 jobs since 1998 and predicted another 5,200 layoffs. When retired CEO Paul Allaire reclaimed the position, he promoted Human Resources Chief Anne M. Mulcahy to president and COO and Burns to senior vice president of corporate strategic services, managing the massive manufacturing and supplier chain operations. The stage was set for both women to rise to unprecedented levels of power.

In August 2001, Mulcahy was installed as CEO and Burns’ role was expanded to include global research and product development. But as sales continued to slide and the stock price nosedived 75%—from its high of $64 a share to $7 a share—their focus was to stop the hemorrhaging. Burns was charged with reducing costs by a staggering $2 billion in operations, including $200 million in manufacturing. “[Anne] had so many other things to focus on. The employee base was nervous, our customers were really unhappy, our investors were panicking. While she was focusing on other things, she just gave me a mandate to fix this thing.”

By September of that year, Burns was named president of worldwide business services. By October, she had outsourced their largest manufacturing projects to Singapore-based Flextronics International, breaking with corporate culture. In the end, 5,000 jobs were transferred to Flextronics, and 1,000 were cut. Analysts applauded company executions and reported the shift would shave roughly $250 million in costs and provide flexibility to develop other products.

It was this innovative, take-no-prisoners approach that propelled her rapid ascent. As president of business group operations, she managed day-to-day operations and developed competitive new platforms such as the DocuColor iGem3 Digital Production Press, an enhanced, environmentally friendly business copier. By 2007 she was named president of the entire company, responsible for marketing, human resources, IT, corporate strategy, and global operations. The company’s revenues and share price rose in lockstep with each advancement. In fact, by October 2007, Xerox was able

to reinstate its quarterly dividend payout to shareholders for the first time in more than six years. That same year, Burns was also elected to Xerox’s board of directors, a clear sign she was the heir apparent to the chief executive.

Burns, Affiliated Computer Services CEO Lynn Blodgett

In July 2009, she achieved a business milestone: Burns, 51, became the first African American woman to hold the position of CEO at an S&P 100 corporation, a $17.8 billion giant with operations in more than 160 countries and a payroll of 57,000 employees. What made her appointment even more momentous is the transition represented the first time a female executive was replaced by another woman at the highest corporate level.

Now, her focus is building the company into an indomitable force in the $132 billion business technology market through a combination of acquisition and organic growth. And judging by her latest moves, there’s no question that Burns will demonstrate why she is one of the most powerful CEOs on the planet.

Making All the Right Connections
For someone who didn’t plan for such ascension, Burns’ timing has been impeccable. Several factors—including her technical expertise—helped position Burns, says Katherine Giscombe, vice president of Women of Color Research for Catalyst, an advocacy organization for the advancement of women in business. “Her mechanical engineering background has been key,” she maintains. “This type of technical degree opens the door to a broader set of career opportunities.”

Burns agrees. “One of the things that Xerox taught me was that it was really important to be great at something, for two reasons,” she explains. “People have to actually know that you can do something; you earn the position of being a generalist by being a really good specialist, an individual contributor. The other is the amount of things that get thrown at you in a day when you lead an organization, you have to have a place that you can rest a bit. And for me it happens to be in engineering and in labs.”

Giscombe also notes the number of roles Burns played within the organization provided her with an intimate understanding of Xerox’s broad range of business operations. Mulcahy’s mentorship proved vital to her rise as well. Says Ancella B. Livers, executive director of the Institute for Leadership Development & Research at The Executive Leadership Council: “Ursula had a great strategic

relationship with Anne Mulcahy. She had an opportunity to be a part of important business conversations, to be seen as a strategic partner. That’s huge.”

Mulcahy's mentorship was key to Burns' ascension.

Burns confirms that part of Mulcahy’s strength was in orchestration. “[I] was totally empowered. She knew to not play the guitar, but make sure that the guitar was played well. It was perfect training for me.”

Burns has traveled a great distance from her roots on New York City’s Lower East Side. The middle of three children raised by a single mother, she went to work for Xerox as a 19-year-old summer intern in 1980 while studying mechanical engineering at Polytechnic University of New York University in New York City. “From the day I walked in, I was trained by Xerox to believe that what I did was real and had real impact. It was, ‘Here’s a problem; can you solve it?’” she says of her annual summer internships. “So therefore I got confident.”

After graduation, she was hired as a consultant and worked 100 days a year before gaining a full-time engineer post. Holding two degrees in mechanical engineering (she later received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University) and a passion for the work, she could have easily remained on the technical side, if she hadn’t been exposed to several key mentors—one of whom she married. Before they started dating, her husband, scientist and 43-year Xerox veteran Lloyd Bean, helped her with the “basic blocking and tackling of entering a company,” she says. “He also helped me to look up a little bit and realize it’s not only the labs.”

Within several years at Xerox, Burns gained two significant assignments that would help define her as a promising executive who could handle more than just lab work. In the ’90s, she served as executive assistant to two senior executives, Wayland Hicks, the company’s executive vice president who oversaw marketing, sales, service, and all field operations, and then CEO and chairman Paul Allaire when he took the helm. “Working for these two people got me publicly known inside the company,” she explains. “Before that I was not really exposed.”

Xerox was also undergoing a major transformation. Allaire, a former financial analyst, focused on reorganizing what had become a function-driven bureaucracy into an outfit with smaller,

entrepreneurial business units. It was during this period that Burns ran her first business operation. As vice president and general manager of facsimile—a digital color and black-and-white copier business of the Office Documents Product division—Burns oversaw the smallest, least profitable, and “the least impactful business to manage.”

The newly minted manager was charged with making the fax business profitable and to introduce color technology. To communicate her strategic thrust, she developed an elaborate presentation for the CEO. Allaire’s response: “Make it profitable or close it.” Recalls Burns: “The clarity of the statement was amazing to me. It focused very clearly [on] what the objective was—something I learned that people need. And it made it easy for me to do my job better.”

Growing up professionally in one organization, Burns admits, helped her better understand its corporate culture and performance expectations. She says, “It’s important to figure out a way to be a strong individual, an advocate, and a team player for the rest of the group, and know when to stand back a little bit when it’s required of you to do so.”

Defining Her Own Style
Burns is a true engineer—curious, results-oriented, and precise in direction, time management, and language. She’s also sharp-witted with a biting sense of humor and holds an affinity for fashion, particularly shoes, belts, and textured hose. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen is among the very few business books she’s read, preferring novels that explore the human condition.
Her mother died at age 49, just as Burns was beginning her career. She deeply misses the woman that bestowed her with strong character and an unyielding work ethic. “Amazing woman; very clear, very unconfused and unambiguous,” says Burns, the mother of a 20-year-old son studying nuclear physics and math at MIT and a 17-year-old daughter in love with creative writing.

Having been integral to Xerox’s turnaround, Burns is now focused on how to meet a whole new set of business challenges. Analysts predict revenues to increase only 1% this year and 3% in 2011. But even as her team must contend with a volatile global economy through 2010, she’s confident about her organization’s sound structure. To keep the company competitive, she recently completed the $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services, the largest such transaction in the company’s 104-year history. Thomas W. Smith, analyst at Standard & Poor’s, says the addition of this

provider of business process outsourcing and IT services will enable Xerox to broaden geographic territories through its global sales network while increasing revenue flow.

Her prowess has placed her in demand in the boardroom and at the highest levels of government. “One of the many things I admire about Ursula is her clarity of vision,” offers Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and CEO of American Express, one of the corporations on which Burns serves as a board member. “If you want people to follow, you need to give them a sense of where you are leading them. Ursula knows where she wants to lead and she articulates it exceptionally well. That’s one of the things that make her an inspirational leader.” In December, these attributes led President Obama to tap her for the White House campaign for excellence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education.

Reluctant to embrace publicity, Burns is squarely focused on the business at hand. “It’s all about the company,” she insists. “If you make the company great, if people say this is a great place to work, it’s a great place to develop technology, it’s a great place to present value to customers, then you can actually become famous. If you’re trying to become famous, then it’s almost surely going to be a disaster. But if you want to be associated with greatness, it’s about being associated with greatness, not about [you] being great.”

In July 2009, Burns, a bootstrapper who joined Xerox 30 years ago as a summer engineering intern, became the first black woman to run one of the nation’s 500 largest corporations. Burns succeeded a woman, Anne Mulcahy, so this was big news indeed.

Taking the reins at a critical time for the company, Burns immediately went about the daunting task of reversing a numbers slide in sales, in people, and in profitability. Despite the tough odds and tougher market realities for the copier giant, confidence in Burns has run high, and she has not disappointed. She has also barely paused to take a breath.

But on a brisk December Saturday in Rochester, New York, she sat for our cover —a first since her appointment—and gave us an exclusive interview. What we learned is that Burns is everything she’s touted to be: smart, witty, confident, no nonsense—and more.

What we already knew, though, is that as rare and competent as she is, Burns is not the first black woman capable of handling such a job; she is merely the first to have the opportunity. The fact that she’s featured in an issue with 74 other African American women executives and business leaders is a testament to decades—even centuries—of hard-earned progress.

Since its inception 40 years ago, black enterprise has aggressively documented the contributions of African American women in business. The list of women who helped pave the way to this moment is long.

New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm, a member of the founding Board of Advisors of Black Enterprise, was such a woman. So is Ernesta Procope, who, as head of E.G. Bowman Co., the then largest black-owned insurance brokerage, was the first woman featured solo on our cover in August 1974. So are Oprah Winfrey and the 20 phenomenal women we have honored with Black Enterprise Women of Power Legacy Awards, including marketing maven Ann Fudge.

As the breakthrough president of Maxwell House Coffee Co., Fudge appeared our August 1994 cover featuring  Black Women in Corporate America: The Inside Story. The article told of how black women had begun to outpace black men in filling the corporate pipeline. But it noted a dramatic drop-off at managerial levels, women’s salaries still lagged behind those of their male counterparts,

and black women managers tended to be clustered in ancillary business areas. In most cases, black women weren’t just hitting the glass ceiling, they were being aimed at it.

Fast-forward 15 years and enter Ursula Burns. She’s a math wiz, a natural leader, and a risk taker with a reputation for being supremely grounded. My admiration for her runs deep. Also, and I mean this in the best way possible, Burns reminds me of my mother.

Burns is a native New Yorker who grew up with limited means, like my mother, Winifred Pamphile Graves. Burns is known for her sharp wit and sense of loyalty, like my mother. She sets the bar high and then leaps over it, and she is physically diminutive, like my mother. But Burns’ achievements were completely outside the realm of possibility for my mother and black women of her generation—or mine.

Education, opportunity, timing—these made all the difference between the paths Burns and the women we spotlight in this issue have taken and the paths of the countless bright, driven, capable women who preceded them. Directly or not, they are connected to each other, they have taught and learned from each other—in many cases via the pages of  black enterprise—and they are as respectful of those who came before as they are mindful of the BE Nexters who are following fast on their heels.

Picture this: Ursula Burns one day handing over the Xerox reins to another black woman. It would be spectacularly good news. And now, it is completely within the realm of possibility.

Burns

Xerox Corp. named Ursula Burns chief executive office Thursday. Burns, who currently serves as president, will replace Anne Mulcahy July 1.

Anne “leaves the CEO role having created a rich legacy that I am honored to build on,” said Burns in a statement. “It is humbling to follow such a great leader and to serve as CEO of such a great company. I’m grateful for the opportunity and, like Anne, focused on creating value for our customers, our people, our shareholders and our communities.”

Burns faces mounting challenges as Xerox recently cut 3,000 jobs to reduce costs, instituted a hiring freeze, and suspended matching contribution to employees’ 401(k[b1] ). Showing further signs of strain under tough economic conditions, the company’s first quarter revenue fell [b2] 18% year-over-year.

The move was not unexpected since Burns, 50, was seen as Mulcahy’s heir apparent since she was named president in 2007.

Mulcahy, 56, is credited for leading the company in a multibillion-dollar turnaround, despite her retirement she will retain her post as chairman.

Mulcahy will continue to chair the Xerox board. The announcement made at the annual shareholders meeting.

“Anne has focused intently on developing the next generation of leadership at Xerox, with Ursula Burns prepared to strengthen Xerox’s industry-leading position in the marketplace,” said N.J. Nicholas, Jr., lead independent director of Xerox’s board of directors.

Burns has spent almost 30 years with the printer and copier maker. She joined Xerox in 1980 as a mechanical engineering summer intern and later assumed roles in product development and planning. As she rose through the ranks of the Norwalk, Connecticut-based company, she led several business teams including the office color and fax business and office network printing business. In 2000, she was named senior vice president of corporate strategic services and later took on the broader role of leading Xerox’s global research as well as product development, marketing and delivery.

She is a regular on Black Enterprise’s 100 Most Powerful Blacks in Corporate America list, and Xerox has been a staple on Black Enterprise’s Best Companies for Diversity list since it’s inception in 2005.

Rand

The AARP tapped A. Barry Rand as its new chief executive, succeeding longtime CEO William Novelli.

“AARP’s resources are immense, but so are the goals that it seeks to achieve,” said Rand, 64, in a statement. “The fight will not be easy, but if I’ve learned one thing in my career, it’s that nothing worthwhile ever is.”

The AARP is a powerful group that lobbies on the state and national level on behalf of Americans ages 50 and older.

Rand, who currently serves as the volunteer chairman of Howard University’s board of trustees, spent 30 years at Xerox Corp. where he rose from a sales representative to executive vice president for worldwide operations. While at Xerox, he was instrumental in ensuring minorities and women had every opportunity for advancement at the company.

Under his leadership, Xerox became the most diverse company in the Fortune 500. When Rand left Xerox in 1999 to become chairman and CEO of Avis, he became one of the first African Americans to achieve such a position at a Fortune 500 firm.

At Howard University, Rand created the Helen Matthews Rand Endowed Scholarship.  Named for his mother, a teacher and principal, the scholarship provides full tuition and a laptop to students pursuing a degree in teacher education. Recipients must make a two-year commitment to teaching in an inner-city or urban environment upon completing their degrees.

Rand will officially take over as CEO April 6.

President-elect Barack Obama addresses journalists in his first press conference. He is flanked by Vice President-elect Joe Biden and incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. (Source: Getty Images)

President-elect Barack Obama called on the Bush administration to work to quickly enact an economic stimulus plan as he pledged he would tackle the problems of an ailing economy “head on.”

He said if a package is not passed in the coming weeks by the lame duck administration “it will be durthe first thing I get done when I take office.”

“We need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear,” he said, as he was flanked by his economic team, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and newly appointed chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. “A fiscal stimulus plan that will jump-start economic growth is long overdue –- and we should get it done.”

He said if a package is not passed in the coming weeks by the lame duck administration, “it will be the first thing I get done when I take office.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will try to push through a package already in Congress later this month.

Obama outlined a plan to boost consumer confidence and inject aid into the middle class. During the wide- ranging news conference, he also spoke out about the rising jobless claims, foreign policy and taxes as he prepares for the White House.

“The 240,000 jobs lost in October marks the 10th consecutive month that our economy has shed jobs,” he said. “In total, we’ve lost nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, and more than 10 million Americans are now unemployed.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment surged 6.5% in October, marking a 14-year high.

Obama has made assisting the ailing auto industry weather the financial crisis, and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars in the U.S. “I have asked my team to explore what we can do under current law and whether additional legislation will be needed for this purpose.

Ford Motor Co. said earlier today that it lost $129 million in the third quarter as the automaker burned through $7.7 billion and made plans for more job cuts. General Motors Corp. also reported it lost $2.5 billion in the same period and warned that it could run out of cash in 2009 if the economic turmoil doesn’t abate. Ford, GM, and Chrysler have requested low-interest loans from the government to aid in weathering the economic slowdown. Obama pledged during the third presidential debate to make Detroit a top priority.

“The news coming out of the auto industry this week reminds us of the hardship it faces –- hardship that goes far beyond individual auto companies to the countless suppliers, small businesses, and communities throughout our nation who depend on a vibrant American auto industry. The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing and a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I would like to see the administration do everything they can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted.”

On foreign policy, Obama said, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions are unacceptable and the country’s support of terrorists is something that has to cease.”

Numerous times during the news conference, Obama took pains to state that he was not yet the president as if he wanted to remind people that he is unable to enact any policy until Jan. 20, 2009.

Obama had earlier said that he wouldn’t make any personnel announcements today, and stuck to that plan despite prodding from a journalist. When asked if he thought it would be better to name the secretaries of state and Treasury sooner rather than later, he said: “When we have announcements about cabinet appointments, we will make them. I want to move with deliberate haste.”

Earlier today, Obama met with his team of economic advisers to discuss mending the troubled financial system, record job losses and auto industry. Among the business leaders in attendance were Warren Buffett and executives from Xerox, Google, and Time Warner.

“Let me close by saying that I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead,” he said before taking questions — including a query on what kind of dog he’ll get his daughters — from the more than 100 assembled journalists.