Anand Deshpande
Founder and Chairman
Persistent Systems
About Anand Deshpande
Dr. Anand Deshpande is the Founder, Chairman, and Managing Director of Persistent Systems since inception and is responsible for the overall leadership of the Company.
Anand holds a Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.) with Honours (Hons.) in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA. He has been recognised by
both his alma maters — as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2012 by IIT Kharagpur and by the School of Informatics of Indiana University with the Career Achievement Award in 2007.
Anand is a true technology visionary and has been the driving force in growing Persistent Systems from its inception in 1990 to today’s publicly traded global Company. Prior to founding Persistent Systems, Anand began his professional career at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, where he worked as a Member of Technical Staff from May 1989 to October 1990.
After transitioning from the CEO role at Persistent in 2019, Dr. Deshpande is committed to making a broader impact and works closely on several initiatives in entrepreneurship, data, biotechnology, health, research and higher education.
He is a founding trustee of Persistent Foundation, which is responsible for Persistent’s corporate CSR.
With his family members, Anand has established the DeAsra Foundation. This non-profit entity has a scalable platform to support nano entrepreneurs. The foundation has supported nearly 300,000 nano entrepreneurs. In collaboration with Dr. Ashok Korwar, he has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs scale their businesses through the Second Orbit program.
He is a trustee of the VLDB Foundation and is actively working on projects to create a data platform for Indian patients suffering from cancer and diabetes. He is the co-chair of the Governing body of the Biotechnology Research Innovation Council. He is an honorary Adjunct Professor of Practice at the Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship at IIT Bombay. He also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Patna, IIIT Allahabad, and VJTI, Mumbai.
In the past he has served numerous positions at various professional and non-profit organisations – NASSCOM’s Executive Council, founding President of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) India, Software Exporters’ Association of Pune (SEAP), Pune Chapter of Computer Society of India (CSI), CII’s Pune Zonal Council, Trustee in the Computer History Museum, a part-time member of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), founding member of Indian Software Products Industry Round Table (iSPIRT), founding member of I4C, a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council in the School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering of Indiana University.
He was on the governing board of the College of Engineering, Pune, and on the board of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune.
Anand is married to Sonali, and they have a daughter, a son and a daughter-in-law.