Marry someone 20 years older to get ahead, Xerox CEO advises young women

Chairman and CEO of Xerox, Ursula Burns, has revealed that one of the keys to her success was marrying a great man 20 years her senior.

She admitted it while speaking at a conference organised by Catalyst, an organisation aimed at boosting women in the workplace, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So the secret to get ahead in life is to marry someone 20 years older, Burns told the audience Wednesday, the Huffington reported.

A mechanical engineer by trade, Burns rose from an internship at Xerox to become the first-ever African-American female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, according to AOL Daily Finance.

Along the way, she met her husband. She said the couple’s 20 year age difference meant he could retire and stay at home with their kids once her job got more demanding, the Wall Street Journal stated.

Burns's advice is somewhat similar to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, whose book “Lean In” sparked debates online about how women should approach getting ahead.

For her part, Sandberg has said her husband’s willingness to split housework and childcare responsibilities is vital to her success.

“I tell young women the most important career choice you’re going to make is who your life partner is,” Sandberg said in a 2011 interview with Business Insider

They are not alone the luckiest women. The husband of IBM’s first female CEO, Virginia Rometty, reportedly opted for a flexible career path that allowed him to ease his wife’s rise to the top.

Martin Ginsburg, the late husband of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, used to joke that he picked up and moved to Washington DC, because his wife had been offered “a good job.”