Adobe Names Shantanu Narayen Chief Executive Officer

    PRESS RELEASE:

SAN JOSE, Calif. — (adobe​.com) — November 12, 2007 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced its Board of Directors has appoint­ed cur­rent pres­i­dent and chief oper­at­ing offi­cer Shantanu Narayen as its pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, effec­tive December 1, 2007. Narayen will also join Adobe’s Board of Directors at that time. Narayen replaces Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, who will serve the remain­der of his term on Adobe’s Board of Directors through the Spring of 2008 and con­tin­ue in a strate­gic advi­so­ry capac­i­ty through the end of fis­cal year 2008.

“Bruce Chizen’s vision has helped trans­form Adobe from a com­pa­ny that was known main­ly for its pop­u­lar design prod­ucts into one of the largest and most diver­si­fied soft­ware com­pa­nies in the world,” said Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, Adobe’s chair­men of the Board of Directors. “We thank him for his out­stand­ing lead­er­ship and con­tri­bu­tions to Adobe’s suc­cess dur­ing his entire 14 years at Adobe and the past sev­en as CEO.”

Narayen’s pro­mo­tion reflects Adobe’s strat­e­gy to ensure a planned suc­ces­sion of the company’s senior leadership.

“Shantanu’s exten­sive knowl­edge of our prod­ucts and plat­forms, cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and excep­tion­al oper­a­tional lead­er­ship make him the ide­al choice to lead Adobe as CEO,” said Chizen. “For me per­son­al­ly, the time is right for a trans­fer of lead­er­ship and I look for­ward to sup­port­ing Shantanu as he takes on his new responsibilities.”
“I am hon­ored to assume the lead­er­ship of Adobe and to con­tin­ue to car­ry on the lega­cy of Bruce and our founders, John and Chuck,” said Narayen. “I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing Adobe’s tra­di­tion of tech­nol­o­gy lead­er­ship and inno­va­tion, and help­ing the com­pa­ny achieve its next phase of growth.”

Shantanu Narayen Background

In his cur­rent role as pres­i­dent and COO, Narayen leads the company’s day-to-day glob­al oper­a­tions; sets Adobe’s long-term mar­ket strate­gies; and over­sees all prod­uct research and devel­op­ment, world­wide sales, cor­po­rate strat­e­gy and invest­ments, and cor­po­rate and prod­uct mar­ket­ing. Together with Chizen, Narayen spear­head­ed the acqui­si­tionof Macromedia, Inc. in 2005, expand­ing Adobe’s soft­ware plat­form and solu­tions and strength­en­ing the company’s pres­ence in key mar­kets rang­ing from video to enter­prise soft­ware to mobile solutions.
Narayen joined Adobe in January 1998 as vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Adobe’s engi­neer­ing tech­nol­o­gy group. In January 1999, he was pro­mot­ed to senior vice pres­i­dent, world­wide prod­ucts and in March 2001 he was pro­mot­ed to exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent, world­wide prod­uct mar­ket­ing and devel­op­ment. In January 2005, Narayen was pro­mot­ed to pres­i­dent and chief oper­at­ing offi­cer. Prior to join­ing Adobe, Narayen co-founded Pictra Inc., a dig­i­tal pho­to shar­ing soft­ware com­pa­ny, in 1996. Previously, he was direc­tor of desk­top and col­lab­o­ra­tion prod­ucts at Silicon Graphics Inc. and held var­i­ous senior posi­tions at Apple Inc.

Company Expects Q4 Fiscal 2007 Revenue Near High End of Targeted Range; Targets 13 Percent Revenue Growth in Fiscal 2008

Adobe announced today it expects to achieve results near the high end of its fourth quar­ter rev­enue tar­get range of $860 mil­lion to $890 mil­lion. For fis­cal year 2008, Adobe announced it is tar­get­ing annu­al rev­enue growth of approx­i­mate­ly 13 percent.
The com­pa­ny plans to report its fourth quar­ter and fis­cal 2007 year-end results on December 17, 2007 after the mar­ket closes.

(Follow this link to the full Adobe press release)