Shantanu Narayen

Shantanu Narayen is chair and chief executive officer of Adobe, one of the largest and most diversified software companies in the world. Adobe’s mission is to empower everyone to create, serving a large customer base from business professionals and consumers, creators and creative professionals to marketing professionals at the world’s largest enterprises.

As CEO, he has transformed the company into an industry innovator by pioneering a cloud-based subscription model for its creative products, establishing the global standard for digital documents and creating and leading the explosive digital experience category. Today, he’s driving the company’s AI agenda, delivering transformative innovations across creativity, productivity and customer experience and expanding Adobe products to more users.

Shantanu joined Adobe in 1998 as vice president and general manager of its engineering technology group. He became president and COO in 2005, CEO in 2007 and chairman of the board in 2017. During his tenure as CEO, the company has achieved record revenue.

He is vice chairman of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum and sits on the board of Pfizer. He previously served as a director of Dell and is a past member of the U.S. President’s Management Advisory Board.

Under his leadership, Adobe has been recognised for its inclusive, innovative and award-winning workplace and culture, including being continuously named a Great Place to Work and a Most Admired Company by Fortune. Shantanu has been named among the world’s leading executives, including Barron’s World’s Best CEOs and Fortune Businessperson of the Year lists and named a Top CEO by Glassdoor based on employee feedback. He is a recipient of India’s civilian honour Padma Shri and the Economic Times Global Indian of the Year award.

Before joining Adobe, Shantanu held product development roles at Apple and Silicon Graphics and cofounded an early photo-sharing startup, Pictra.

Shantanu holds five patents. He has a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Osmania University, a master’s degree in computer science from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He once represented India in sailing at an Asian regatta.