Polly Xu in

Polly Xu

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Chief Information Officer at Ciena
📍 North Palm Beach, Florida, United States

Polly is a business-focused digital executive who transforms Fortune 500 companies by blending technology with commercial strategy to accelerate growth and P&L impact. Her experience includes leadership roles at Otis Elevator Co. and General Electric. She earned bachelors degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and The University of British Columbia.

She is passionate about developing the next generation of talent, emphasizing the importance of meaningful internship experiences. Polly actively supports and celebrates female leaders in her field, highlighted by her engagement with organizations like ITWomen.

Unique fact: She architected the first-ever "Digital Thread" strategy at Otis Elevator Co., establishing end-to-end product data traceability.

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Experience
20 Years
Current Role
Chief Information Officer
Job Level
Leadership
Location
North Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Personality Overview

How Polly shows up

Communication Style
Decision Approach
Work Preference

Behavioral traits and communication patterns that shape how this person evaluates opportunities, builds trust, and makes decisions in professional settings.

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Priorities

Topics Polly cares about

Digital Transformation
Her career focuses on transforming large enterprises like Otis and NextEra Energy by embedding digital technology and data as a foundational part of business strategy.
Business-Focused IT
Views the digital organization as a strategic business partner, not a traditional IT department, focusing on solutions that directly enable revenue growth and margin expansion.
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Career

Work history

5-2026
Chief Information Officer
Ciena
1-2024 - 3-2026
Vice President, Global Digital Thread & Americas CIO
Otis Elevator Co.
1-2022 - 12-2023
CIO, Americas
Otis Elevator Co.
9-2018 - 1-2022
Head of Big Data, AI & Share Service in Power Delivery
NextEra Energy, Inc.
9-2017 - 8-2018
Senior Director, Digital Product Management and Portfolio, General Electric Digital
GE
In the press

Media appearances

Ciena Strengthens Leadership Team with Key Executive Appointments. Featured in Ciena Investor Relations (press release)
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Ciena bolsters executive team with supply chain, product appointments to scale AI infrastructure. Featured in SDxCentral
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Education
2001 - 2005
Bachelor
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
2003 - 2003
Bachelor
The University of British Columbia
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

Dominance, influence, steadiness, and calculativeness scores with guidance on how this person prefers to communicate and decide.

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