Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Sep 6: Bengaluru-born technology executive Anil Chakravarthy has been appointed as the next president and chief executive officer of Adobe, joining the growing list of Indian-origin leaders at the helm of major global technology companies.
Chakravarthy, currently president of Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business, will assume the CEO role on December 1, 2026, succeeding long-serving chief executive Shantanu Narayen.
Narayen, who has led Adobe for more than 18 years, will step down as CEO and become executive chair. He will work closely with Chakravarthy during the transition, the company said.
Chakravarthy’s appointment comes at a crucial time for Adobe as the company navigates rapid developments in artificial intelligence and intensifying competition from AI-powered platforms such as Canva and products developed by companies including Anthropic and OpenAI.
Born and raised in South Bengaluru, Chakravarthy completed his schooling at Vijaya High School in Jayanagar before pursuing his pre-university studies at National College, Basavanagudi, from 1983 to 1985.
He later moved to Varanasi to study computer science at the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University. At 21, he travelled to the United States for higher studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a master's degree and later completed his PhD in 1995.
Chakravarthy began his professional career at McKinsey and subsequently worked with companies including Logictier and VeriSign. He spent nearly a decade at Symantec between 2004 and 2013, eventually becoming executive vice-president of Information Security, overseeing engineering, product management and operations.
His experience at Symantec helped shape his ambition to become a CEO. He later joined Informatica in 2013 as executive vice-president and chief product officer and became the company's CEO in 2015, a position he held until 2020.
Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 as executive vice-president and general manager of its Digital Experience business. Later that year, he also took responsibility for worldwide field operations, serving enterprise customers across Adobe's product portfolio.
In December 2021, he was promoted to president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations.
At Adobe, Chakravarthy has played a key role in expanding the company's Customer Experience Orchestration business, using real-time data and AI to help companies deliver personalised experiences across digital platforms.
He has also overseen the development of AI-powered and agentic products including Adobe CX Enterprise, GenStudio and Brand Visibility, while contributing to the expansion of Adobe Experience Platform.
Chakravarthy was also involved in Adobe's acquisitions of Workfront and Semrush and their integration into the company's portfolio.
Narayen said Chakravarthy has a proven track record of developing products and expressed confidence in his ability to lead Adobe during an increasingly AI-driven era.
Chakravarthy's appointment also highlights the significance of India to Adobe's global operations. The company has more than 8,500 employees in India across campuses in Bengaluru, Noida, Gurugram, Mumbai and Hyderabad, making the country its largest workforce base outside the United States.
Adobe, which began operations in India in 1997, has described the country as a major hub for research, development and innovation. Its Indian teams contribute to more than a third of the company's innovation efforts across Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud.
Several major Adobe products, including Illustrator and Acrobat, have also benefited from product development led by teams in India.