Indian American business executive Shantanu Narayen is the CEO of Adobe Systems. He served as the President and Chief Operating Officer since 2005. Mr Shantanu is also the President of the Board of the Adobe Foundation.
Early Life
Mr Shantanu, who grew up and completed his schooling in Hyderabad, India, holds a Bachelor of Science in electronics engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad. He earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. He had done Master of Science in computer science from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. On 7 May 2011, Mr Shantanu earned an honorary Doctor of Applied Science degree from his alma mater, Bowling Green State University.
Career
Shantanu Narayen began his career at Apple. The Indian American business man later served as the director of desktop and collaboration products for Silicon Graphics. He co-founded Pictra Inc. Pictra is a company that pioneered the digital photo sharing concept over the Internet.
In 1998, Shantanu joined Adobe as a senior Vice-President of worldwide product research. Later the company promoted him to the position of executive vice president of worldwide products. Narayen also serve on the board of Dell. He is an advisory board member of the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley.
Promotion to CEO of Adobe
On 12 November 2007 in a press release, Adobe Systems made an announcement that Bruce Chizen would be replaced by Shantanu Narayen as the Chief Executive Officer effective December 1.
An advisory agency, Brendan Wood International considered Narayen as one of the “The TopGun CEOs” in 2009. He was named by the US President Barack Obama as a member of his Management Advisory Board in 2011.
