In January, Xerox rolled out a new logo. Why the switch?

I felt that the company had changed so dramatically, and what we had was a very flat logo, very traditional and corporate.

It looks to me—don’t get mad—I know that it’s supposed to be the globe, and that the soft X stands for Xerox, but it looks like a croquet ball to me. Was this a long process?

Well, there you are. It took longer than I thought it should have, because I tend to think that things should move pretty quickly. I mean, how tough is it? But the fact is that this is a corporate asset. You need to test it. You need to think about it. We wanted the logo to be more informal, and we wanted it to be more attractive in a three-dimensional world versus a two-dimensional world. We also wanted to make sure that the color palettes reflected the color business and the company.

Also, the new logo took a long time to roll out. The name is everywhere, so you have to transition everything. We immediately transitioned on the Web. But they were telling me it was going to take six months to get the logo on the outside of the headquarters building here. About two weeks after we made the announcement on the brand, I was in Egypt. And I’m coming out of the airport and there’s this huge billboard with the new brand on it. I was on the phone saying, “Guys, I’m in Egypt. [Laughs.] And there’s a billboard up. I think you can do better than six months on the headquarters building.”

Was it there by the time you got back?

I’d like to say I moved mountains, but I think it took about four months versus six months. [Laughs.]

You’ve got Xerox moving in the direction that you want, just in time to run smack into a recession. There’s a sense that Xerox is sort of a proxy for the corporate economy, that businesses only upgrade office equipment when times are good. Is that still true?

It’s not. More than half of our revenues come from outside the United States now. So as much as we play in U.S. corporate accounts, the reality is it’s much less important than it was a few years ago.

It’s also a time when being a services business is hugely important. We go in and say, “We’re going to own your document infrastructure, and we’re going to save you 20 to 30 percent of what you’re spending because we can do it more efficiently.” The other thing is that we’ve worked very, very hard to make sure our business model is annuity-driven versus transaction-driven.

Meaning?

Under contract. Our consulting, our financing, our technical services—all of that is under contract for multiple years. About 72 percent of our revenues are annuity-based.

Whom do you like in this election and why?

Well, I’m certainly a Democrat. I began by supporting Hillary. Now I’m supporting Obama. I’ll be happy to see this election season over with. We need to go from talk to action. We need action in this country, big-time.

What are you hoping to see?

One of the worrisome things about the party right now is that there’s not a lot of great talk about trade. We need a focus on trade that may not make for great political sound bites but is desperately needed in a global economy. I also worry a lot about the postponing of some of these very big issues, like health-care reform and Social Security. I feel like we’ve stalled on these.

Any question I haven’t asked?

Yes, and I’m glad it didn’t come. You didn’t ask me about being a woman C.E.O. [Laughs.] That’s big. That could be a first.