Postcards

Xerox CEO's career advice: Listen to your mom

When Ursula Burns went to Washington and met with President Obama last Friday, at least two people in the room personified her notion of what leads to great success: "The biggest differentiator is not how you are born," says the Chairman and CEO of Xerox (XRX). "It's how you're influenced throughout your life."

Barack Obama had a remarkable single mother to influence him. As did Burns, who grew up on New MORE

Keys to success from Avon's top boss

In every successful career there is a moment: You could quit. But you resist, wisely.

For Andrea Jung, the chairman and CEO of Avon Products (AVP), this moment happened right after college, when she was in the management training program at Bloomingdale's. All day everyday, there she was in the stockroom, switching vendor hangers for store hangers on thousands of pieces of clothes. "I remember calling my parents around Thanksgiving and MORE

McDonald's exec takes health crusade personally

The McDonald's (MCD) boss behind the healthy upgrade to its U.S. menu is practicing what she preaches: She recently lost 90 pounds.

Jan Fields, who started at McDonald's 33 years ago cooking fries and is now the fast food chain's U.S. president, was soon to turn 55 when, she says, "I woke up one day and said, "Oh my God, how did I gain this much weight?"

Like millions of her customers MORE

Managing up: Advice from Pfizer and Xerox execs

"How do you manage up?" asked a young woman from the audience at the Forté Foundation's MBA Women's Conference.

It was a bold question--and one that Kristin Peck, the fast-rising Pfizer (PFE) executive who was on the panel that I moderated, answered unabashedly.

Peck knows from experience. She is Pfizer's EVP in charge of Worldwide Business Development and Innovation, a perch that she reached only by surviving a slurry of management dysfunction MORE

Disney's Anne Sweeney talks authenticity, acting, and autism

FORTUNE -- As the most powerful woman in children's television, Anne Sweeney meets a lot of girls who wish they were Selena Gomez or Miley Cyrus or tomorrow's superstar.

But Sweeney insists that she sees plenty of accomplished women in business who do that very same thing.

"I see a lot of women of every age trying to be something else," says Sweeney, the co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of MORE

This beauty queen is no girly girl

You might think that a woman who sells $20 billion worth of beauty products in a year would have been, in her youth, a girly girl.

Not Gina Drosos. "I was a total tomboy," she says.

The top boss of Procter & Gamble's (PG) global beauty division is, like quite a few of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, a recovering jock. Growing up in Atlanta with a brother and a neighborhood packed with MORE

Hear them roar: Global 500's women CEOs

This is a great summer for powerful women.

There are the obvious victories, like Christine Lagarde grabbing the reigns of the International Monetary Fund after Dominque Strauss-Kahn's tumultuous fall from grace.

And then there are the successes that you won't read about in the tabloids. Two Fortune 500 companies, Sempra Energy (SRE) and Guardian Life, promoted women to CEO this past month--Debra Reed and Deanna Mulligan, respectively. Campbell Soup (CPB), named Denise MORE

Naval pioneer to globetrotting pharma exec

It still takes a powerful man to make room for a powerful woman. There is, of course, the stunning rise of Christine Lagarde at the International Monetary Fund. (Thank you, DSK.) And there is the presence of 12 women CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies. (The 2011 Global 500 list hit the web today.)

Indeed, except for the rare corporation where a woman follows a woman CEO—Xerox (XRX) is the textbook MORE

MPW Entrepreneurs: The best advice they've received

The Fortune Most Powerful Women search for extraordinary entrepreneurs is on.

We're looking for 10 female founders of innovative and thriving U.S. or international companies with revenue between $1 million and $25 million. To request an application form or to nominate someone you know, please email Elizabeth Busch at Elizabeth_Busch@fortuneconf.com by Monday, July 25. For more information about the application process, visit our Facebook page here.

In this video, our winning entrepreneurs MORE

How Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg learned to love power

This week's New Yorker includes a profile of Sheryl Sandberg, who is many things. She is the Facebook COO who is helping Mark Zuckerberg turn his startup into a very profitable business. She is, at 41, one of the fastest-rising stars on Fortune's annual Most Powerful Women list. And as she has taken to talking publicly about her career--from the World Bank to McKinsey & Co. to the U.S. Treasury MORE