“When the chips were down and the economy was crawling, the best excelled through technological innovations”
Persistent Systems’ founder, Chairman & Managing Director has been named as the one of the “Best CEOs” in 2016. This is the fourth annual ranking of CEOs by Business Today, done in partnership with PwC India. The article highlights: “…technological innovation has emerged not just as a saviour but also as one of the greatest levers of growth, even during a downtime.” The full article is available here.
Said, Dr. Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, “While I am certainly honoured to be included in this list of esteemed Indian business leaders, the credit for this goes to the almost 10,000 people of Persistent Systems. They are the innovators, the doers, the voice of our customers, who make digital transformation possible. I am so proud of all of them as we lead this transformation and revolutionize our customers’ digital experience.”
Active in various professional and charitable organizations, Anand has served as a member of the Executive Committee of NASSCOM Executive Council, and has served as President of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) India, President of SEAP (Software Exporters’ Association of Pune), and Chairman of the Pune Chapter of CSI (Computer Society of India).
He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the Dean’s Advisory Council of the School of Informatics of Indiana University and the Executive Committee of MCCIA (Maratha Chamber of Commerce Industries & Agriculture). Anand is currently co-chairing the VLDB 2016 (42nd International Conference on Very Large Databases). With the vision of creating a vibrant product ecosystem in India, he is the founding member of iSPIRT, India’s first product think tank.
In July 2013, Anand and his family set up a Section 25 Public Company, deAsra Foundation with a mission to help create more than 25,000 job creators.
Prior to founding Persistent Systems in 1990, Anand began his career at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (now HP Labs) in Palo Alto, California. Anand holds a B. Tech (Hons.) in Computer Science & Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, and a Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana.
Persistent Team Lead Instructional Design, Anuja Khaire, said, “Anand is a special CEO. One day I was having lunch with colleagues in our cafeteria and Anand just came and joined us. Something as small as that creates a sense of trust, approachability and mutual respect. I am so proud to be a part of this culture and the Persistent family. Starting from the top with Anand, humility and respect are two of the important values that help catalyze the success of Persistent.”
