Speed, Ease, and Expertise With AI: Lenovo’s Linda Yao

90 snips

Apr 1, 2025

Linda Yao, vice president of hybrid cloud and AI solutions at Lenovo, shares insights from her impressive career, including her work at Boeing. She discusses Lenovo's evolution into a managed services provider, focusing on how organizations can successfully adopt AI. Yao emphasizes the importance of speed, ease, and expertise, while outlining the four pillars of AI readiness. She also highlights the need for human connection in the AI era, addressing challenges like return on investment and the critical role of change management in technology implementation.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Four Pillars of AI Readiness

Companies must prioritize four key areas for AI readiness.
These areas encompass people, technology, processes, and security/data.

INSIGHT

Lenovo's Transformation

Lenovo transitioned from a product company to a managed services provider.
They now assist organizations with AI implementation and change management.

ANECDOTE

Three Waves of AI

Linda Yao discusses the evolution of AI in the enterprise, highlighting three distinct waves.
She emphasizes generative AI's role in democratizing AI and driving current adoption.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Linda Yao, chief operating officer and head of strategy for Lenovo’s Strategy,

Solutions, and Services Group and vice president of hybrid cloud and AI

solutions, joins us to explain the organization’s transition from technology product company to managed services provider. It’s now helping organizations with the change management required to implement AI in the enterprise.

She shares both a framework around speed, ease, and expertise to facilitate this adoption, as well as the four pillars of AI readiness that Lenovo guides its clients to achieve. Tune in to this episode, also, for Linda’s perspective on the role of human connection in what she calls the era of inference, a time when we should focus on the implementation of maturing AI tools. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest Bio:

Linda Yao serves as vice president of hybrid cloud and AI solutions at Lenovo.

Yao recently also took on the role of chief operating officer and head of Lenovo’s Strategy, Solutions, and Services Group and established the company’s AI Center of Excellence.

Previously, at Boeing, she incubated a data science practice in the U.S. and India, built an

M&A team, and oversaw investments for one of the largest corporate retirement plans in the world. She earned her finance chops at IBM in New York and Shanghai. Yao earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard University and an engineering certificate from MIT. She is an active liaison for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Foundation and the

YoungArts, a national foundation.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the executive producer is Allison Ryder.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.