Humana Inc., one of the nation’s leading health and well-being companies, has named Sam Deshpande to the newly created position of Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer to oversee development of the company’s Chief Risk Office.
In this new, executive-level role, Deshpande will report directly to Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard, and will serve as a member of Humana’s Management Team. Deshpande will set direction and establish policy in the areas of enterprise risk management and compliance, while building a risk strategy and a culture that manages risk appropriately.
Risk management and compliance have always been top priorities at Humana. Reaffirming this focus on risk and compliance with the addition of Deshpande will enable the company to establish a consistent definition of risk across the enterprise and drive connections and collaboration throughout the business to ensure timely, proactive discovery and faster mitigation of risks and their causes.
“Our business is multi-faceted and highly personal it’s about people and their health,” said Broussard. “This requires a deep commitment to quality and to ensuring we’re running our business in a way that allows us to continually build trusting relationships with our many stakeholders health plan members, health care provider partners, regulators, shareholders and associates.”
Deshpande joins Humana after an extensive external search, bringing 28 years of compliance, marketing and strategy experience to his new position. He comes to Humana from Capital One, a financial services company admired for their risk management practices and diversified asset base. Deshpande spent 17 years there in key leadership positions, most recently as Business Chief Risk Officer for the U.S. and international card business.
He previously served as the Business Chief Risk Officer and Head of Enterprise Services for the Financial Services Division, responsible for Business Risk, Data Science, Data Quality, Process Excellence and Project Management. He also led marketing and analysis for the Home Loans, Auto Finance, and Credit Card businesses, with responsibilities for business strategy, credit, product and marketing.
Prior to Capital One, Deshpande worked for Accenture and Booz & Company, leading client engagements for Fortune 500 companies in the consumer, high tech, automotive and aerospace industries.
He has a master’s degree in business administration, with a concentration in finance and business economics, from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech, and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India.
