Adobe names Anil Chakravarthy as next CEO

Adobe's board has named Anil Chakravarthy as the company's next president and CEO, effective December 1, 2026. The Adobe newsroom posted the succession on 3 September 2026. Chakravarthy, currently president of Customer Experience Orchestration and worldwide field operations, will join the Board the same day he takes the CEO title.

This is a board succession with a three-month runway, not a same-day CEO change and not a surprise firing. Shantanu Narayen will become executive chair and, Adobe says, will work closely with Chakravarthy through the handoff. Lead Independent Director Frank Calderoni, who led the special committee on the selection, said the Board unanimously determined Chakravarthy is the right leader after a rigorous process.

Narayen had already flagged his exit. CNBC (Annie Palmer) notes he said last March he would step down after 18 years as CEO. That makes this a planned succession, not an emergency overnight swap.

Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 as Digital Experience general manager, added worldwide field operations in September 2020, and became president in December 2021. Before Adobe he was CEO of Informatica for four years. Products Adobe names under his watch include Adobe CX Enterprise, GenStudio and Brand Visibility, plus the Workfront and Semrush integrations.

The other leadership move landed the same day. David Wadhwani, president of creativity and productivity, said he will leave as Chakravarthy steps up. CNBC had treated Wadhwani as a CEO contender after the failed Figma deal. On LinkedIn, Wadhwani called it his own decision: he has company ideas he plans to "explore and pressure-test," and wrote that he has "decided this is the right moment for me to start a new chapter."

Adobe's stock has been under pressure on investor fears that AI will disrupt software. That is market colour, not Adobe's stated reason for the pick. CNBC puts the slide at 25% in 2024, 21% in 2025, and 18% so far in 2026, with shares down about 2% in extended trading after the announcement.

Other large tech successions this week have already gone live, including John Ternus taking over as Apple CEO. Adobe's date is still ahead. The same AI-era tape has framed Nvidia's agreed purchase of Hugging Face and OpenAI's ChatGPT ads run-rate.

The creativity bench is moving in a week of other leadership resets, including Uber's 3,300-job cut. Adobe hosts its Q3 FY2026 earnings call on September 10.

If you sell to Adobe, compete with Creative Cloud or Experience Cloud, or hold the stock, treat December 1 as the real handover and use the September 10 call for CX Enterprise and GenStudio roadmap clarity. Treat Wadhwani's exit as a creativity-org signal, not as proof the board dumped a rival.