Technology and AI
Adobe names its next chief executive, and the current one becomes executive chair
By Staff Writer | 4 September 2026
Anil Chakravarthy, who runs the company's customer experience business and its worldwide field operations, takes over on 1 December 2026 after a selection process led by a special committee of the board. Shantanu Narayen, who has led the company for eighteen years, moves to executive chair. The president of the creativity and productivity business is leaving.
Adobe's board of directors announced on 3 September 2026 that Mr Chakravarthy, president of its Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations, will become president and chief executive officer and join the board with effect from 1 December 2026. Mr Narayen, who said in March that he would step down, becomes executive chair and will work with his successor through the transition.
The announcement was made over the wire from San Jose, California, and was reported the same evening by financial news outlets, one of which recorded the shares down about 2 per cent in extended trading.
The choice
Mr Chakravarthy joined the company in January 2020 as executive vice president and general manager of the Digital Experience business, took on worldwide field operations in September 2020, and was promoted to president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations in December 2021. Before that he was chief executive of Informatica, the enterprise data management company, for four years, having joined it in 2013 as executive vice president. Earlier roles were at Symantec, VeriSign and McKinsey and Company. He holds a Bachelor of Technology in computer science and engineering from the Institute of Technology at Varanasi and a master's degree and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Frank Calderoni, the company's lead independent director, led the special committee that oversaw the selection.
The Board has unanimously determined that Anil is the right leader for Adobe's next chapter of growth.
Frank Calderoni, Lead Independent Director of Adobe, who led the special committee overseeing the selection
Mr Calderoni said the committee had conducted a rigorous selection process and that over six and a half years Mr Chakravarthy had transformed and expanded the customer experience business and field operations. The announcement credits him with products including CX Enterprise, GenStudio and Brand Visibility, with scaling the Experience Platform, and with championing the acquisitions of Workfront and Semrush.
The handover
I could not be more confident that Anil is the right person to lead Adobe's growth in an AI-driven era and look forward to working closely with him in my new role as executive chair.
Shantanu Narayen, chief executive, Adobe
Mr Narayen joined the company in 1998 and has run it for eighteen years. In his statement he described his successor as an experienced leader with a deep knowledge of the business and a record of building category defining products. Mr Chakravarthy, for his part, thanked the board and said he intended to lead the company into what he called the next era of agentic software for creativity, productivity and customer experience.
Alongside the succession, David Wadhwani, president of the creativity and productivity business for nearly five years, said he is leaving. He had been regarded as a contender for the top job, in part because of his role in the attempted purchase of Figma, which the two companies abandoned in 2023 after regulatory objections. In a post on a professional network he said the moment was right for him to start a new chapter and that he leaves confident in where Mr Chakravarthy will take the company.
The succession lands as investors question whether generative models will eat the market for the company's creative tools. The board has answered by promoting the executive who runs its enterprise data and marketing business rather than the one who ran its creative products.
The company reports its third quarter results on 10 September 2026. Mr Narayen will present them; the questions will be for the man who takes over on 1 December.