Ashish Deshpande
Co-founder, Director
An Industrial Designer from the National Institute of Design, Ahmadabad, India, Ashish started his design entrepreneurship journey, 34 years ago, by co-founding India’s pioneering design practice, Elephant. Elephant today is present in India as well as Singapore.
Ashish leads Product & Retail Experience Innovation group and has lead projects ranging from consumer appliances related to air, water & energy, medical equipment, wearable electronics, automotive and retail. He & his team at Elephant is recipient of several awards including Spark (USA), Greener Gadgets (USA), iF Design Award (Germany), Golden Pin Award (Taiwan), Lexus Design Awards India, CII-Design Excellence and 5 products designed by his team have received the India Design Mark.
Ashish is HFI certified Usability Analyst. His consulting experience spans start-ups, Corporates, MNCs from India, South-East Asia, Japan and Europe. Ashish has worked with CIIE, Intel and T-Hub Hyderabad to mentor start up incubees through Design Thinking.
Having served on the jury panel of "Power of Ideas" run by CIIE - IIM-A, Ashish mentors several start up initiatives incubated by CIIE, MIT ID and Intel – Innovate for Digital India. Ashish was invited to mentor start-ups during Smart India Hackathon promoted by the Prime Minister of India.
Ashish conducts workshops on Design Thinking, Growth by Design & Product Innovation. Invited to speak at International Design Congress, Gwangju, he also delivered keynote at International Symposium, Naju Innovation City, Korea, World Eco-friendly Design Expo and spoke at A+ Design Symposium, Taiwan. Recently, he has delivered a product innovation workshop for Design students at Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan. Ashish has been on the Product Design Jury at Cannes Lions in France as well as at the Taiwan International Student Design Competition.
Ashish is founding trustee and past President, Association of Designers of India and an active member of the Design Alliance Asia. He has served as appointed member of India Design Council, has been on the jury of India Design Mark and was invited to attend Good Design Mark Jury, Japan.
Ashish is IICA certified Independent Director and was invited to join the Board of Directors of Symphony Limited in 2018.