Editions   North America | Europe | Magazine

WhatTheyThink

Adobe announces executive appointments

Press release from the issuing company

San Jose, Calif. - Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced executive appointments that will align and strengthen the company's focus on major customer segments and enable these customers to create, deliver and optimize digital experiences across a wide range of media and devices.

David Wadhwani, who has served as vice president and general manager of Adobe's Platform Business Unit since 2008, has been promoted to senior vice president and general manager of the newly formed Creative and Interactive Solutions business unit (CISBU), reporting to Shantanu Narayen, Adobe president and CEO. The CISBU will include the Creative Suites, the Flash Platform, digital publishing and rich media solutions.

"With the Creative and Interactive Solutions BU, Adobe is taking a more integrated approach to the needs of designers, developers and media publishers," said Narayen. "By combining these products and solutions in one business unit, we can deliver faster on our vision of multi-screen publishing, and drive innovation and support for both Flash and HTML5 authoring. David's expertise in cross-platform content solutions will benefit our publishing, media and enterprise customers, helping them more quickly move from print and single screen workflows to the digital and multi-screen world of the future."

Senior Vice President John Loiacono, who has led Adobe's Creative Solutions BU (CSBU) since 2006, has been appointed to lead the newly-created Digital Media Solutions BU (DMSBU), also reporting to Narayen. The focus of the DMSBU will be on strengthening innovation and expanding market opportunities for Adobe's core digital imaging franchise, which includes tools for both digital imaging and video professionals.

"Johnny's leadership of CSBU over the past four years has resulted in significant growth and innovation across our creative businesses," said Narayen. "His passion for Photoshop, Premiere Pro and our portfolio of digital imaging and video products - and the new opportunities for these technologies as new digital platforms emerge - means that creatives worldwide can look forward to even more dazzling software from Adobe."

Brad Rencher, who previously served as vice president of business operations for the Omniture BU (OBU), has been promoted to vice president and general manager, also reporting to Narayen. Rencher succeeds Josh James, founder and former CEO of Omniture, who will leave his post as senior vice president of the OBU at the end of July 2010.

"With Omniture, Josh built the industry's first integrated online marketing suite as an intelligent platform to optimize online business initiatives. Further, he provided the leadership to ensure that we exceeded our timelines and milestones for the integration of Omniture into Adobe," said Narayen. "In fact, Omniture's business has never been stronger and now accounts for about 10 percent of Adobe's revenue. This is due, in large part, to Josh's leadership and we're grateful for his contributions."

Under Rencher's leadership, the OBU will expand to include Adobe's Scene7 rich media solutions, which, combined with Omniture's tracking and analytics solutions, will empower online marketers, advertisers and retailers to deliver more impactful user experiences and business results.

"Brad played a key role integrating Omniture into Adobe's business during the past nine months," said Narayen. "The business has continued to perform exceptionally well and we see increasing momentum with the Online Marketing Suite, which is expanding our relationships with key customers. Under Brad's leadership, we have the opportunity to provide even more complete solutions for our customers in these segments."