Bengaluru, Sep 2026 : Bengaluru-born technology executive Anil Chakravarthy has been appointed as the next president and chief executive officer of Adobe, marking another significant rise of an Indian-origin leader to the top of a global technology company. Chakravarthy will take charge as CEO on December 1, 2026, succeeding Shantanu Narayen, who has led Adobe for more than 18 years.
Chakravarthy currently serves as president of Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business and has held several senior leadership positions at the company since joining in 2020. Following the transition, Narayen will step down as CEO and become Adobe’s executive chair. The company said Narayen will work closely with Chakravarthy during the leadership transition.
The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for Adobe as the software industry undergoes a major transformation driven by artificial intelligence. The company faces intensifying competition from AI-enabled platforms and emerging technologies developed by companies such as Canva, Anthropic and OpenAI. Chakravarthy will therefore take over at a time when Adobe is seeking to strengthen its position across creative, document and digital experience software.
Born and raised in South Bengaluru, Chakravarthy attended Vijaya High School in Jayanagar before completing his pre-university education at National College, Basavanagudi, between 1983 and 1985. He subsequently moved to Varanasi to study computer science at the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University.
At the age of 21, Chakravarthy moved to the United States for higher education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a master’s degree and later completed his PhD in 1995, laying the foundation for a career spanning technology, cybersecurity, enterprise software and corporate leadership.
Chakravarthy began his professional journey at McKinsey before moving through roles at Logictier and VeriSign. He spent almost a decade at Symantec from 2004 to 2013, eventually becoming executive vice-president of Information Security. In that role, he was responsible for engineering, product management and operations, gaining extensive experience in building technology products and managing large-scale teams.
His time at Symantec also strengthened his ambition to lead a technology company. In 2013, he joined Informatica as executive vice-president and chief product officer and was appointed CEO in 2015. He remained in that position 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 assumed responsibility for worldwide field operations, expanding his role across Adobe’s enterprise customer base and product portfolio. In December 2021, he was promoted to president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations.
During his tenure at Adobe, Chakravarthy has played an important role in developing the company’s Customer Experience Orchestration business. His work has focused on combining real-time data and artificial intelligence to enable businesses to deliver more personalised and connected digital experiences.
He has also overseen the development of AI-powered and agentic offerings, including Adobe CX Enterprise, GenStudio and Brand Visibility, while contributing to the growth of Adobe Experience Platform. His responsibilities have also included involvement in Adobe’s acquisitions of Workfront and Semrush and their integration into the company’s broader product ecosystem.
Narayen praised Chakravarthy’s record of product development and leadership, expressing confidence in his ability to guide Adobe through an increasingly AI-driven technology landscape.
Chakravarthy’s appointment also highlights the strategic importance of India to Adobe’s global operations. The company employs more than 8,500 people across Bengaluru, Noida, Gurugram, Mumbai and Hyderabad, making India its largest workforce base outside the US.
Adobe began operations in India in 1997 and has since developed the country into a major centre for research, development and innovation. Indian teams contribute to more than a third of Adobe’s innovation efforts across Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud, with products such as Illustrator and Acrobat also benefiting from development work led by teams in India.
