Adobe names Anil Chakravarthy CEO from December 1 as Shantanu Narayen becomes executive chair
Adobe named Anil Chakravarthy president and chief executive officer effective December 1, 2026, with Shantanu Narayen moving to executive chair after more than 18 years running the company. Narayen had announced in March that he would step down, so this is the naming of a successor rather than a surprise exit. Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 and most recently led customer experience orchestration and worldwide field operations. Adobe closed up 2.1% at $285.75 in the regular session and slipped 1.7% after hours; the stock is down about 18% year to date on AI-disruption concerns.
ADBE said on September 3 that Anil Chakravarthy will become president and chief executive officer on December 1, 2026, and that Shantanu Narayen will become executive chair after more than 18 years as CEO . This is a succession that was already telegraphed: Narayen announced in March 2026 that he intended to step down, so the news is the identity of the successor and the handover date, not the departure itself.
Chakravarthy is an internal promotion with a long runway at the company. He joined Adobe in January 2020, was elevated to president of Digital Experience in December 2021, and most recently ran customer experience orchestration and worldwide field operations . Before Adobe he spent four years as chief executive of Informatica, with earlier stops at Symantec, VeriSign and McKinsey. Narayen framed him as "an experienced transformational leader who leads with values, integrity."
The market reaction was muted rather than dramatic, and the sequence matters. Adobe closed the regular September 3 session at $285.75, up 2.1%, and gave back 1.7% in after-hours trading once the announcement landed. Headlines framing the day as a decline are describing the extended-hours move, not the close . The larger context is a multi-year derating: Adobe lost 25% in 2024, fell more than 21% in 2025, and is down about 18% so far in 2026 as investors weigh whether generative AI erodes the moat around its creative tools.
That backdrop is the real test for Chakravarthy. Promoting a company veteran signals continuity of strategy rather than a break with it, which is reassuring on execution and less so for anyone hoping the AI question gets a fresh answer. Adobe's own sentiment picture is more constructive than its price chart: our sentiment reading on the stock is a positive 0.23 on a 30-day average, and Adobe currently ranks in the 85th percentile of rated stocks. Watch the December handover and the first quarter under new leadership for whether the Digital Experience and creative businesses reaccelerate.
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