Jai Deshpande

About Jai

A daughter of two audacious immigrants, Jai arrived in the US in 2014 with aspirations to ‘do big things.’ She has since grown as a servant leader and dreamer through her various endeavors in high school, college and beyond.

As a high schooler, Jai discovered her deep appreciation for business studies via several extracurriculars. In her undergraduate career, she studied marketing and sales at the University of Houston. Her passion for learning business practices straight from the source led her to discover the incredible impact of non-profits and small businesses on local communities. She worked with several such institutions to learn and eventually provide her expertise to increase their impact throughout her undergraduate career.

After graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BBA in Marketing, Jai completed a brief stint at Mattress Firm where she had the opportunity to closely experience entrepreneurs and sole proprietors serve their communities via their businesses. Her time here, in combination with her personal endeavors with Humans Untold - a platform sharing immigrant stories and experiences, led her back to graduate school with dreams of building a minority-serving business. Through trial and error in graduate school, Jai found inspiration from a community close to her and decided to create her brand, Sama. She is currently developing her first product for Sama as part of her graduate curriculum.

With a passion for creativity and servitude, Jai aspires to build a career that embodies inclusion and celebrates the diversity.