Deepa Purushothaman

DEEPA PURUSHOTHAMAN is a former senior executive and a corporate inclusion visionary. She challenges and redefines the status quo of leadership, success, and power by centering the needs and experiences of Women of Color. As a senior partner at Deloitte, Purushothaman spent more than 20 years helping clients transform and grow. She also focused on women’s leadership and inclusion strategies as the managing partner of WIN, Deloitte’s pioneering, globally renowned women’s initiative, and the first Indian-American woman and one of the youngest people to make partner in the firm’s history. After leaving Deloitte in 2020, Purushothaman co-founded nFormation, a membership-based community for professional Women of Color, offering brave, safe, new space and placing them in C-suite positions and on Boards. She is also a Women and Public Policy Program Leader in Practice at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a founding board member of Avasara, India’s first leadership academy exclusively for young women. Purushothaman’s book, The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America, was published in March 2022 to international acclaim. Purushothaman is a TED and SXSW speaker and has been featured across multiple publications such as TIME, PBS, Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review.  Purushothaman has degrees from Wellesley College, Harvard Kennedy School, and the London School of Economics. She lives in Los Angeles.