New Delhi: A major change at the software giant Adobe that the company has announced is that Indian-origin executive Anil Chakravarthy has been named its next President and Chief Executive Officer. The appointment will be effective from 1st December 2026 with the handover of the CEO post from incumbent Shantanu Narayen to Chakravarthy.
Narayen will assume the position of Executive Chair and continue to lead the company for almost 18 years. He’ll keep a close eye on Chakravarthy while they do the handoff, and help guide Adobe through the next chapter in its development.
Who is Anil Chakravarthy
In January 2020 Chakravarthy was named Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Digital Experience business at Adobe. Then in December 2021 he moved up to president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations. In this role he oversees Adobe’s field operations across the world. Now he leads Adobes Customer Experience Orchestration business and also manages global field operations.
Prior to that, Chakravarthy was CEO of Informatica, a leading enterprise cloud data management company, from 2015-2020. He’s also worked at Symantec, VeriSign and at McKinley & Company.
Chakravarthy is well-versed in technology. He holds his degree of Bachelor of Technology (B.T.) in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT, Varanasi and a Masters degree and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Adobe faces growing AI competition
The move for a leadership change was inevitable at Adobe because of some difficult times just two weeks ago. This company is seeing an increasing competition from AI powered software and new tools that are revolutionizing the creation of designs, images and other digital content. In addition, Adobe is leveraging AI in more of its products and agentic software in areas of creativity, productivity and customer experience.
The shares of Adobe have also taken a hit, due to concerns about the effect of Artificial Intelligence on the conventional software firms. The company’s stock was reported to have dropped some 18% in 2026 at the time of the announcement, said Reuters.
Hence, it’s Chakravarthy who will be in the driver’s seat at a pivotal moment. Digital product, enterprise customers, and AI-driven business solutions experience may be critical to Adobe as it tries to further its presence in the dynamic, fast-evolving tech sector.
