When Anne Mulcahy took the corner office at Xerox in 2001, the fabled copier company was buckling under Japanese competition and teetering on bankruptcy. Her appointment as Xerox's first woman CEO came as a surprise to the business world, and on the day of the announcement the company's stock plummeted 15 percent. Undaunted, Mulcahy went on to engineer one of the great turnarounds in business.

At the time Mulcahy took over, many were questioning Xerox's future. Awash in $17 billion in debt, burdened by an SEC scandal, and mired in consecutive quarters of losses, Xerox appeared destined for bankruptcy. To pull out of the slump, Mulcahy, a lifer at Xerox and one of only seven Fortune 500 female CEOs, shut down sagging business units and trimmed personnel. She aggressively restructured Xerox's debt and cut expenses. A year later, the company reported an operating profit.

Today Mulcahy continues the turnaround, steering her company towards color printing and consulting services and away from the "document-company" focus of the recent past. The color printers focus appears to be paying off, and no one is talking Chapter 11. But more work remains to be done, and growth is another challenge for Mulcahy and Xerox. It's a painful reality of business that no CEO can remain on top without gaining market share. Just ask Carly Fiorina.