Shantanu Narayen

Sometime in the late 1980s, Shantanu Narayen married Reni, who he met during his university days. They have two sons together, Shravan and Arjun. The family currently resides in Palo Alto, a city in California’s San Francisco Bay Area.

Shantanu Narayen was born on May 27, 1962 in Hyderabad, India into an affluent family. His mother was a professor of American literature while his father owned a plastics company. He grew up alongside his older brother. Initially, he wanted to become a journalist but his parents advised him to study engineering instead. According to Narayen, the only real options available to him back then were engineering and medicine, and he was afraid of the sight of blood.

After attending Hyderabad Public School, Narayen enrolled at the University College of Engineering, Osmania University (UCE), where he studied electronics and communication engineering. After graduation, he moved to the US to further his studies and eventually got a master’s degree in computer science from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and a master’s degree in business administration from Haas School of Business, University of California.

Instead of opting for an established multinational firm during campus recruitments, Shantanu Narayen joined a start-up named Measurex Automation Systems in 1986. A well-funded and successful venture, it provided the fresh graduate with some much-needed, real-world experience. In 1989, he joined Apple where he served in multiple management positions for the next six years.

In the mid-1990s, during the period known as the ‘Internet Boom’, he and his associates came up with the idea of an image-sharing website and in 1996, Pictra Inc., one of the first picture-sharing websites, was born. They had realised that the world is ultimately going to upgrade from analogue to digital photography and built an ecosystem that let clients drop off their roll of film and get digital pictures. However, after 12 to 14 months, it was apparent to them that the funding and business model had not quite matured.

Narayen himself admitted that he never calculated his career progression nor was he recruited or interviewed again after his first job. While most opted to switch from engineering to product management after doing their MBA, he never did that, believing “If it feels right, it should work out.”

During his tenure at Apple, he was mentored by Gursharan Singh Sandhu of Apple Talk, from who he learned how to challenge others and oneself. After Apple, he briefly served as the director of desktop and collaboration products for Silicon Graphics.

In 1998, he came to Adobe Systems as a senior vice-president of worldwide product research and in time, became the chief vice president of worldwide products. In November 2007, it was announced that Bruce Chizen would resign as CEO on 1 December. Aged 45, Narayen assumed his current position as the Chief Executive Officer of Adobe Systems, replacing Chizen. Due to his incredible work ethic and extensive understanding of the technology sector, it took him only a decade to rise to the top position at one of the biggest companies in the industry.

In 2008, Shantanu Narayen won the Haas School’s Business Leader of the Year Award (known as the Alumnus of the Year Award from 1970 to 1998).

He received the American India Foundation (AIF) Business and Philanthropic Leadership Award in 2009.

That year, he was ranked among “The Top Gun CEOs” on the list of Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.

The International Imaging Industry Association conferred on him the Annual Leadership Award in 2010.

In 2011, Narayen was awarded the Global Innovator Award at Nasscom’s 7th Annual Global Leadership Awards.