Adobe names Anil Chakravarthy as CEO, Narayen to become executive chair

Adobe will name Anil Chakravarthy as chief executive on December 1, with longtime CEO Shantanu Narayen becoming executive chair as AI tools challenge its creative software business

By Brody Ford

 

Adobe Inc. named Anil Chakravarthy, the leader of its marketing and analytics software business, as its next chief executive officer, thrusting the company veteran into a challenging competition with artificial intelligence upstarts.  

Chakravarthy will move into the post on Dec. 1, while CEO Shantanu Narayen will become executive chair, Adobe said Thursday in a statement. Narayen has led the company since 2007. Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020.

 

David Wadhwani, who ran Adobe’s creative business, said he will leave the company. Wadhwani and Chakravarthy were the leading internal candidates to become the next CEO, Bloomberg reported in early June. 

 

Known for tools like Photoshop, Adobe’s software has long been the standard for creative and marketing professionals. But in recent years, the company has faced increasing questions from Wall Street about whether it will be toppled from its post in the age of AI. Generative AI has made it easier to produce visual media without Adobe’s expensive products, and many of the most popular new AI tools are built by competitors.

 

 

The selection of Chakravarthy will come as a surprise to some within the company and its investor base as the division he oversaw — marketing and analytics software — is much smaller than its flagship creative unit. 

 

“New ADBE CEO Not Who Many Expected,” was the title of a note from Brent Thill, an analyst at Jefferies. “We had believed David Wadhwani, head of the creative unit, would be the rational choice given his running of three-fourths of Adobe’s revenue and respect inside and outside Adobe.”

 

Shortly after the decision was announced, Wadhwani separately posted on LinkedIn that he would be leaving the company. “As much as Adobe means to me, I’ve decided this is the right moment for me to start a new chapter,” he wrote.

 

The shares declined about 2 per cent in extended trading after the CEO transition and Wadhwani’s departure were announced. Investors have steadily soured on the company over AI disruption fears, with its stock down 52 per cent since the beginning of 2024.

 

“Anil is an experienced transformational leader who leads with values, integrity and a deep knowledge of our business,” Narayen said in the statement. “He has a proven record of building and delivering category-defining products that serve our broad range of customers.”

 

The division Chakravarthy leads generated $5.86 billion in sales in the 2025 fiscal year that ended in November, about a quarter of the company’s total. He has been “instrumental in adding agentic capabilities across its products,” wrote Anurag Rana, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “His biggest challenge will likely be stemming the decline in sales growth and reversing perceptions that Adobe is vulnerable to free AI tools.”

 

Prior to joining Adobe, Chakravarthy was CEO of data integration company Informatica Inc., which is now a unit of Salesforce Inc. 

 

“I’m energised by the opportunity to fuel growth and drive Adobe’s leadership in the next era of agentic software for creativity, productivity and customer experience,” Chakravarthy said in the statement. 

 

Narayen oversaw a period of huge growth at the company. He is often credited with steering one of the first successful transitions in software to a business model in which customers bought recurring subscriptions to bundles of products, rather than one-time purchases of individual applications. The company announced the search for his successor in March.

 

“We expected an outsider to be in the running, especially with the competitive environment,” wrote Jackson Ader, an analyst at KeyBanc. Still, “a candidate with prior public CEO experience was landed, and we see little risk of major disruption.”