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San Jose, Calif.-Based Software Maker Adobe Systems Names New President, COO

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 January 2005, 00:00 CST

Jan. 18--Adobe Systems on Monday promoted one of its longtime executives, Shantanu Narayen, to president and chief operating officer of the San Jose software maker.

With the move, Narayen, 41, takes over much of the company's day-to-day operations from Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen, who had also been Adobe's president.

Chizen said the shift in duties is designed to free him up to focus on long-term strategies and growth -- and specifically to spend more time meeting with corporate customers as Adobe seeks to boost sales to large businesses.

"He's been doing a large part of the job for the last number of years," Chizen said of Narayen sharing leadership duties with him over the last several years.

Adobe has not had a COO since 1998. Narayen had been Adobe's executive vice president of worldwide products since 2001.

In his new job, Narayen continues to report to Chizen and will be responsible for engineering, product marketing and sales at Adobe, the leading maker of imaging and graphics software.

Chizen described the setup as similar to how Adobe co-chairmen and co-founders John Warnock and Charles Geschke had split duties. "Adobe has demonstrated that two can lead successfully," he said.

He added that Narayen was the clear No. 2 leader at the company, but Chizen, 49, said: "I have no plans to retire."

Narayen was in India on Monday and was unavailable for comment.

Under Shantanu's leadership, Adobe bolstered sales by bundling software offerings such as Photoshop and Illustrator into the single Creative Suite product, said Bill Lennan, analyst with WR Hambrecht.

"The results of the CS launch and subsequent sales has been beyond anyone's most optimistic case, and Adobe's revenue growth and stock-price appreciation confirm this," said Lennan, who does not own any Adobe stock, in an e-mail. "Because this remarkable progress occurred under Shantanu's leadership, Bruce has the luxury to move his attention to enterprise solutions, which will ultimately be the long-term growth driver for Adobe."

Shares of Adobe closed at $58.23 Friday, up 52 percent in the past 54 weeks. But in December, the company gave a sales forecast for the current first quarter that could fall below Wall Street's expectations.

Adobe is looking for growth in selling document-management services to large corporations through its "Intelligent Documents Platform." In its 2004 fiscal year, the Intelligent Documents business grew 50 percent to account for about $100 million of Abobe's $1.67 billion in sales.

"Those large enterprises want the assurance of a CEO," Chizen said, referring to his plan to spend more time with customers.

Narayen, married with two sons, immigrated to the United States from India in 1984 to attend graduate school, earning master's degrees from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and the University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Before joining Adobe in 1998, he co-founded software maker Pictra and held positions at companies including Silicon Graphics and Apple Computer.

He is also a former competitive sailor, representing India in the 1981 Asian Sailing Regatta. But these days he's more likely to be found on the court with his sons pursuing the family's passion for tennis, a company spokeswoman said.

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(c) 2005, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

ADBE, SGI, AAPL, 6689,

Source: San Jose Mercury News

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