By IANS
New York : Indian American Shantanu Narayen has been appointed president and CEO of Adobe Systems Incorporated from Dec 1.
He is to also to join the board of directors of the software company known for popular products such as Photoshop, Pagemaker and Acrobat Reader.
The Hyderabad-born, Osmania University graduate in electronics engineering is currently president and COO of the San Jose, California based company.
Narayen, 43, replaces Bruce Chizen, 52, who will continue in a strategic capacity till the end of fiscal year 2008.
“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.
Accepting the new responsibility, Narayen said, “I look forward to continuing Adobe’s tradition of technology leadership and innovation, and helping the company achieve its next phase of growth.”
In an earlier interview about Adobe’s plans for India, Narayen said India was both a huge market for the company and a talent pool it would continue to leverage.
Adobe was trying to get their Flashlight software on the mobile handsets going into India from Nokia, Samsung and LG, he said.
“Many components of some Adobe products and some entire products like Fireworks were conceived and developed by our India operations,” he added.
Narayen had occupied several high management positions at Apple before founding photo-sharing software company Pictra.
He joined Adobe in early 1998 as vice president and general manager of the company’s engineering technology group. He rose in the company to become its president and COO in January 2005.