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Adobe Names Anil Chakravarthy President and CEO as Narayen Moves to Executive Chair

· by Pondero Newsdesk

The short version

Adobe's Board chose its enterprise AI architect over its creative division leader. Anil Chakravarthy, who built CX Enterprise and its agentic-AI suite, becomes President and CEO on December 1, 2026, as Shantanu Narayen steps back to Executive Chair after 18 years.

Adobe Names Anil Chakravarthy President and CEO as Narayen Moves to Executive Chair

Adobe picked its enterprise AI architect over its creative product executive. On September 3, 2026, the board named Anil Chakravarthy, the executive who built CX Enterprise and Adobe's agentic AI suite, as President and CEO effective December 1, replacing Shantanu Narayen, who led Adobe for 18 years and moves to Executive Chair.

What happened

Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 as executive vice president of the Digital Experience business. Per the Adobe press release, his remit expanded in September 2020 to include worldwide field operations, and in December 2021 he was promoted to president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations.

Under his leadership Adobe built CX Enterprise (the rebranded and expanded successor to Experience Cloud), GenStudio, Brand Visibility, and CX Enterprise Coworker. All four products sit under an agentic AI framing and target marketing, commerce, and analytics teams that want to automate campaign workflows. Before Adobe, Chakravarthy served as CEO of Informatica, where he grew subscription revenue to more than $1 billion in recurring annual contracts by taking the data-management company through a private-equity restructuring.

The official announcement quotes Chakravarthy saying he is "energized by the opportunity to fuel growth and drive Adobe's leadership in the next era of agentic software for creativity, productivity and customer experience." Lead Independent Director Frank Calderoni said the board "unanimously determined that Anil is the right leader for Adobe's next chapter" following a "rigorous selection process."

That same day, David Wadhwani, president of the creativity and productivity division overseeing Photoshop, Illustrator, and Creative Cloud, announced he would leave Adobe once his responsibilities are transferred. Adobe also carries an interim CFO after Dan Durn departed for Marvell Technologies in June 2026.

Why it matters

Enterprise teams running Adobe's CX Enterprise platform now report to the CEO who built it. Investment in CX Enterprise Coworker and GenStudio is unlikely to slow. The open question is how fast Chakravarthy moves those products from early-adopter pilots to broadly deployed workflows inside buyer organizations.

The simultaneous exit of the Creative Cloud division president creates less certainty for teams whose core tooling is Photoshop, Illustrator, or the creative AI features shipped under those products. Decisions on Creative Cloud subscription pricing and the pace of Firefly integration now sit with a CEO whose background is enterprise data management and marketing technology, not the creative products Adobe originally built its reputation on.

Adobe's Q3 earnings call is scheduled for September 10. That session, while still conducted under Narayen as active CEO, will be the first public event where analysts can directly ask how the leadership change affects near-term product and pricing plans.

What to watch next

The September 10 earnings call is the first opportunity to hear how both Narayen and Chakravarthy frame the transition and whether any CX Enterprise adoption figures or timeline changes surface. After December 1, the first clear signal of Chakravarthy's priorities will be how he fills the Creative Cloud leadership vacancy and whether he announces any changes to Adobe's existing creative subscription tiers.

Sources