The Biz of Coding

Indian Shantanu Narayen named Adobe’s next CEO

by Ujwal Tickoo on November 13th, 2007

Adobe has named its current COO Shantanu Narayen to be the next CEO effective Dec 1, 2007; following Bruce Chizen. Narayen has been with Adobe since 1998 in various senior positions and was in-line for this job. When Narayen visited Bangalore before the Macromedia-Adobe merger and held an all-hands meeting for Macromedia employees, he came across as an unassuming and grounded Adobe executive.

Narayen was quite visible alongside Chizen most of the time during the Adobe - Macromedia merger, communicating and listenting to employees on both sides. Chizen, is expected to stay on Adobe's Board of Directors through Spring 08.

In an interview last year, Raghav Kher founder & CEO of Seventymm had mentioned that about 50% firms in the Silicon Valley are now lead by Indians — a positive change. Unfortunately Indians are still referred to for Engineering roles not Product and Company Leadership roles. The next step is to see when Indian executives (hired in India not Silicon Valley) would get promoted to take up world-wide CEO roles.

Also Read: Network Publishing : Understanding Adobe Creative Suite 3 , Adobe's Options in the PDF battle with Microsoft

POSTED IN: Adobe