Shantanu Narayen at forty one years old is already a CEO. He became CEO of Adobe Systems in 2008. Shantanu Narayen had previously been the President and Chief Operating Officer of the company prior to his promotion. Mr. Narayen is a native of India. His mother taught American literature and his father ran a plastics firm.
Shantanu Narayen holds degrees in electronics engineering, business and computer science. His education has allowed him to be a major innovator in his brief career. The first job that Shantanu Narayen held was at Apple, Inc. He then went to work for Silicon Graphics as their director of desktop and collaboration products. Digital photo sharing on the internet was an innovation he helped develop for his co-founded company Pictra. Shantanu Narayen was hired as senior Vice-President for worldwide product research in 1998 when he went to work for Adobe.