# About

Dr. Linda Xu is Director of Data Analytics & AI at MealSuite, where she owns AI end to end, leading AI strategy, AI governance and decision-support systems. She brought over 30 departments under central AI governance with real-time cost visibility, and works alongside AI agents she built as digital workers. Her delivery spans manufacturing, supply chain and healthcare. She holds a PhD in operations research (logistics and supply chain management) from the University of Plymouth and publishes academically as Wei Xu.

## In brief

- **Name:** Dr. Linda Xu. Publishes academically as Wei Xu.
- **Role:** Director of Data Analytics & AI, MealSuite.
- **Focus:** AI strategy, AI governance, decision-support systems and AI agents.
- **Industries:** Manufacturing, supply chain, healthcare.
- **Education:** PhD in operations research (logistics and supply chain management), University of Plymouth.
- **How I work:** alongside AI agents I built as digital workers, which take the repeat work.
- **Methods:** optimisation under uncertainty, simulation, digital twins, reinforcement learning, genetic algorithms, machine learning, large language models and AI agents.

## My story

I have always believed some questions are too complicated for a person to answer well, and I wanted to work on the ones where a better answer has real impact. That led me to operations research. My PhD at the University of Plymouth, supervised by Dongping Song, Michael Roe and Sarah Tuck, used simulation and genetic algorithms to make supply chain decisions for two manufacturers, and became the book *Optimizing Supply Chain Performance* with Michael Roe and Dongping Song.

Then I moved to industry. At the University of Sheffield I led digital twin and Internet of Things research. As a consultant I worked across manufacturing, healthcare and logistics, including a COVID-19 early-warning model for the NHS. At Veralto (Trojan Technologies) I led automation and data transformation for global logistics, with a 12-person team and a $15M annual budget, and sat on the AI governance committee.

Today I am Director of Data Analytics & AI at MealSuite, a food-service technology company for senior living and skilled nursing. I own AI end to end. I brought over 30 departments and every MCP connection under central governance, and every employee can now see AI cost in real time. I also work alongside AI agents I built as digital workers, so my own time goes to strategy, hands-on model work and people. The tools have grown from optimisation algorithms to decision trees and large language models, but the question is the same. Read the longer version in [how I think about machines making decisions](/approach).

I also worked with Dr. Linton on how new technology reaches the market, from the biotechnology "valley of death" to technological entrepreneurship education.

## Questions people ask

### Who is Dr. Linda Xu?

Dr. Linda Xu is Director of Data Analytics & AI at MealSuite, where she owns AI end to end: AI strategy, AI governance and decision-support systems. She holds a PhD in operations research from the University of Plymouth.

### Is Dr. Linda Xu the same person as Wei Xu?

Yes. Dr. Linda Xu publishes academically as Wei Xu (ORCID 0000-0002-0271-1944). Her papers are on supply chains under uncertainty and on technology management, with co-authors Dongping Song, Michael Roe and Jonathan D. Linton.

### What has she led in her current role?

She owns AI end to end. Over 30 departments are under central AI governance, every MCP connection is governed, every employee can see AI cost in real time and in session, and a 38% reduction in AI cost has been tracked. Barndoor has published [a case study of the governance work](https://barndoor.ai/customers/mealsuite/).

### How does she use AI agents in her own work?

She built AI agents that work as digital workers. They prepare the weekly AI spending report and the weekly AI brief, book travel in Ramp, organise her calendar, remind her of deadlines and keep the AI governance onboarding plan up to date. They connect to company systems through the same governed route as everyone else's. That leaves her time for strategy, hands-on model work and the people behind each project. See [how I work](/work).

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Source: https://drlindaxu.com. Dr. Linda Xu (publishes academically as Wei Xu).