Raju Deshpande is an Operational Excellence expert and strategic leader who is often called for solving ambiguous problems through process driven solutions. Raju’s relentless focus starts with the customer and his unique ability to leverage his process expertise with quick understanding of organizational dynamics to influence right behaviors has helped him drive successful, transformational changes in his professional career.
Currently Raju is using Customer Experience as a compass to lead his Operational Excellence priorities for East West Bank, a commercial bank with core competency in building a bridge between the East and the West. In his capacity, Raju has led numerous transformational initiatives in Retail, Commercial credit, Mortgage and many back office functions. With his focus on process driven changes, he has led three successful acquisitions for East West Bank.
In his prior assignments, Raju was instrumental in Lean and Six Sigma deployment in Bank of America Technology and Operations. Raju has also lead numerous lean transformations in a variety of manufacturing industries in his consulting career and developed a very popular 14-week Lean Enterprise curriculum for the San Diego State University where he served as an Adjunct Faculty for more than ten years.
In his spare time Raju tries to capture nature’s magical moments through his photography and takes every opportunity to soak nature through long hikes in local mountains.  His most recent adventure was hiking Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.