For most of its 111-year history, Xerox has been known as one of the tech industry’s most innovative companies. Now the legendary copier company is reinventing itself.
In January, Xerox made the bold decision to split itself into two, spinning off its business services operations into a separate company called Conduent. And Jeffrey Jacobson, a Xerox tech executive, was tapped as Xerox’s new CEO.
Speaking with Fortune’s Susie Gharib, Jacobson says Xerox is still “one of the top patent producing companies in the world” and he’s counting on that scientific expertise to pivot the company to be a leader in digital print technology.
“If I look at the things we’re looking at with the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and bridging the digital and physical,” he says, “that’s what I think we’ll be known for.”
Xerox is also known for having activist investor Carl Icahn as one of its largest shareholders with a nearly 10% stake in the company and as a representative on the board. Some say it was Icahn’s investment that pressured Xerox to transform itself. Jacobson downplays this idea, saying that Icahn’s role is “like all ten of our independent directors” and that Icahn, like any shareholder, wants “to make sure that they’ll just get total shareholder return.” Jacobson is promising those returns and growth in Xerox revenues by 2020.