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Adobe appoints Anil Chakravarthy as next CEO, effective December 1
Shantanu Narayen will remain CEO until the transition, then become executive chair; compensation details will follow in an amended filing.
TickerGrove Newsroom · Published · Event · Adobe Inc. Form 8-K — Items 5.02 / 7.01 / 9.01
Updated Sep. 8, 2026 at 8:42 PM ET to Presentation cleanup. Reader-facing source notes no longer use internal packet language. Facts unchanged.
Sources
Sources include Adobe's Form 8-K filed September 8, 2026, reporting the September 2 board action, and Exhibit 99.1, the company press release dated September 3, 2026.
Facts are as of the September 2, 2026 Board appointment (earliest event reported). Press release dated September 3, 2026; Form 8-K filed September 8, 2026. Effective Date is December 1, 2026 — Narayen remains CEO until then; this is a succession appointment, not an immediate CEO change on the filing day.
Adobe's board appointed Anil Chakravarthy as its next president and chief executive officer and a member of the board on September 2, with all three roles effective December 1, 2026. Shantanu Narayen remains CEO until that date, when he will retire from the CEO role and become executive chair.
Board action and effective date
Adobe disclosed the succession in a Form 8-K filed September 8. The board decision, the September 3 press release and the filing are separate events: the leadership change takes effect December 1, rather than on the filing date.
Transition roles
Chakravarthy currently leads Adobe's Customer Experience Orchestration business and worldwide field operations. Adobe said Narayen will work closely with him on the transition and the company's ongoing transformation. Lead Independent Director Frank Calderoni led the special committee overseeing the selection process, and the board unanimously selected Chakravarthy, according to the company release.
Selection process
Chakravarthy joined Adobe in January 2020 as executive vice president and general manager of Digital Experience. He added worldwide field operations for enterprise customers across Adobe's portfolio in September 2020 and became president of Digital Experience and worldwide field operations in December 2021.
Chakravarthy's Adobe path
Adobe credited him with leading development of Adobe CX Enterprise, GenStudio and Brand Visibility, helping scale Adobe Experience Platform, and championing the acquisitions and integration of Workfront and Semrush. Those descriptions are the company's account of his operating record. Before Adobe, he served as Informatica's CEO for four years, according to the release.
Prior experience
The filing said neither appointment arose from an arrangement or understanding with another person. It also reported no family relationships between either executive and any Adobe director or executive officer, and no related-party transactions involving either executive under Item 404(a).
Filing and next steps
Compensation terms remain an outstanding disclosure. Adobe said it intends to amend the Form 8-K with the compensatory arrangement information required by Item 5.02(c)(3) when that information is determined.
Compensatory terms and post-Dec 1 operating priorities remain open
The filing discloses Board appointments effective December 1, 2026. It does not prove the transition has already occurred, disclose final compensation, or establish product or market outcomes under the new CEO.
Document trail
Sources & evidence
Primary documents used for this piece.
Adobe Form 8-K body (adbe-20260902.htm)
Adobe EX-99.1 press release (AccNo 0000796343-26-000144)
Adobe Inc. Form 8-K AccNo 0000796343-26-000144 — Items 5.02 / 7.01 / 9.01
Corrections
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