Future Leader Award
Deepa Purushothaman
Deloitte Consulting
Deepa Purushothaman is a Partner in Deloitte Consulting LLP's Telecommunications, Media and Technology practice where she focuses on mergers & acquisitions and business transformation. Her clients include both domestic carriers and international wireless providers, and she's worked with key executives to manage complex integrations and launches across the globe.
Not bad for someone who thought she'd "try consulting for a year and then get out." Purushothaman says she saw consulting as a quick way to gain experience in the private sector, but "here I sit 12 years later and I find that I have grown more each year and that is probably what I enjoy the most about consulting."
Purushothaman says her biggest professional achievement was making Partner, and admits that "at the time, there were people who believed in me more than I believed in myself," she says. "At times, I struggled to see role models who looked and felt like me as I defined my way. Making Partner helped me realize that I could create my own path.
And she continues to blaze a trail with both clients and internally at Deloitte, where she sits on the CEO's Advisory Council and is the national leader of Deloitte's Asian Business Resource Group. "I really enjoy the work I am doing around Asian staff and the work I am doing with the CEO to improve the new Partner/Director experience," she says. "I believe the face of staff and the face of Partnership are changing—our demographics are different than they were even five years ago.
"It's exciting to see there are new and evolving needs within the firm and that I can help shape how we speak about them," she says. "I'm able to bring my own perspective to the conversation as a relatively young, female partner… and as an Asian woman charting my way in consulting."
Purushothaman says she's been told by clients that she's not what they expect a Partner to look like. "I accept I am a five-foot-one Indian woman and that is not going to change, but I also refuse to accept that I have to look a certain way to be able to add value," she says. "I have learned that I have to believe in myself if I expect others to believe in me."
—Joe Kornik
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