Biography

Sanjay Deshpande is the Executive Vice President and Americas Business Head for Banking, Telecom, Retail, and Emerging verticals at Virtusa. Throughout Sanjay’s career across four continents, he has built a reputation as a strategic and growth-oriented leader, transforming businesses through complexity reduction and profitable execution. As the Head of Banking and Emerging Industries at Virtusa, Sanjay leads the region’s overall P&L management and business growth strategy, with a particular focus on expanding the company’s footprint in financial services and telecommunications. Under Sanjay’s leadership, the Americas Banking and Financial Services unit grew by over 110% between 2019 and 2023, making it the most successful business unit within the organization.

Before stepping into his current Americas leadership role, Sanjay was based in London, where he led Virtusa’s banking business across EMEA, APAC, and Canada, driving a 120% growth rate and securing numerous large-scale deal wins. Prior to joining Virtusa through its acquisition of Polaris Consulting & Services Ltd, Sanjay served as the Chief Sales Officer for the Americas at Polaris and was a Board Member of its Canadian entity. During his decade-long tenure there, he was instrumental in growing the flagship universal banking product business by over 50X. Earlier in his career, Sanjay established a successful contact center and communications technology start-up for a leading conglomerate in Dubai, catering to major financial and telecom institutions across the Middle East and Africa.

Sanjay holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Business Administration. He has also completed executive education in Disruptive Strategy at Harvard Business School, Sustainable Finance at the University of Cambridge, Financial Markets from Yale University, and AI Applications for Growth at Kellogg. He is an advocate for diversity, inclusion, and sustainability in the corporate landscape. Sanjay actively pursues a culture of continuous learning and unlearning, leveraging his global network of clients and partners to solve complex industrial challenges.