Shantanu Narayen
Shantanu Narayen is the first non-founder CEO at a Fortune 500 tech firm in more than two decades. His tenure has been marked by an unprecedented growth period for Adobe and significant investments that helped make Adobe one of the top 10 biggest software firms globally based on revenue and the number one software company in terms of revenues and profits. Before joining Adobe, he worked as an executive vice president with McKinsey & Company in New York City. He focused on helping large financial services organizations grow profitably through digital transformations.
Narayen joined Adobe Systems in March 2005 to lead the Digital Media business unit. Before that, he served as senior vice president and general manager of the Asia Pacific Region at Microsoft Corporation, which was then the leading interactive media player provider. Before his role at Microsoft, Narayen spent time working in consulting and held various positions in academia and industry research labs.
Childhood & Early Life of Shantanu Narayen
Shantanu was born in Mumbai, India, and grew up in Chandigarh, Punjab, India. He was born into an affluent family where his mother was a professor of American literature and his father a businessman. Narayen always wanted to become a journalist when he grew up, but his parents encouraged him to study either engineering or medicine. He fell in love with engineering as Narayen mentioned that he was scared of blood when he was still young.
Later on, Narayen attended Osmania University, where he pursued electronic engineering. After graduation, Shantanu had big dreams and moved to the United States to further his studies. He attended Bowling Green State University and got his master’s degree. He then attended Haas School of Business and got his second master’s in Business Administration.
After graduating from Haas, Shantanu decided to work for McKinsey & Company in their Silicon Valley office. During this time, he worked on many projects, including helping Apple develop their iPod. Afterward, he returned to India and met Nandan Nilekani (Narendra Dabholkar), who later became the chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited. It is said that they have known each other since their high school days in Chandigarh. Narayan started developing a relationship with Nilekani at the very beginning stage of the company. Later, he left McKinsey for good and joined Infosys as an associate consultant.
After leaving McKinsey, he joined Adobe Systems as an operations manager. He moved to San Jose to learn about the US market. While at Adobe, he was responsible for creating the Digital Media group and bringing it to profitability. Soon enough, he moved to Seattle and was promoted to Senior Director in charge of all Digital Media products.
His hard work and dedication paid off as he made rapid progress within the company and was soon promoted to VP of Technology Research and Development. This job carried a lot of responsibility and pressure. The team’s goal was to create new tools and technologies that would add value to the company. He was promoted again to GM of the Asia Pacific region with great results. He made another move when he replaced the former GM of the Asia-Pacific region, David Meerman Scott, who was now looking for a change. He took over the CEO, CEO of Adobe Systems, and Global CTO of Adobe Systems.
FAQs
Shantanu Narayen is happily married to his lovely wife, Renni Narayen. The two met when they were still students at Bowling Green State University. They have two sons together.
Shantanu Narayen is an Indian-American businessman. He was born in 1963 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Mr. Shantanu’s net worth as of January 2022 is estimated to be around 271 million dollars. He also has more than 170,266 units of stock in Adobe, the equivalent of $180,264, 602. Through the sale of ADBE stock, he made over $51,997,312. He makes a total of $39,148,700 as the Board Chairman, CEO, and President of Adobe Inc.
Narayen began his career back in 1986. His first job was at Measurex Automation Systems. The company made automotive computer control systems. Later on, he moved to Apple, where he worked from 1989 to 1995. He then moved to a senior management position.
