Digital marketing is going to be the next big thing........
One’s
forebears don’t necessarily have to be the rich and famous for one to
successfully head a multi-billion dollar global corporate entity. That
is the message one gets by merely glancing at the story of Mr. Shantanu
Narayen, the CEO of Adobe Systems, one of the world’s largest and most
diversified software companies, which has also facilitated (indirectly)
in hundreds of thousands of others making a fortune. This isn’t your
dramatic rags to riches or a scion of a leading business family just
inheriting and assuming the mantle and taking it to heights tale. In
fact, Narayen’s career should be the standard illustrative story for
every student who is without the benefit of the riches or a pedigree but
yet that aspires to make it big through proper education, dedication,
hard work, focus, and an ability to make the right decisions at the
right time.
Early days
Mr.
Narayen was born (May 27, 1963) in Hyderabad into a well-settled
family. His mother was a mathematics teacher while his father ran a
small plastics factory. He did his schooling from the prestigious
Hyderabad Public School. Although he had grown up aspiring to be a
journalist, he did his Bachelors in Science in Electronics Engineering
from Osmania University, Hyderabad, upon insistence from his parents.
His aspirations to pursue higher education took him to the US where he
completed his Masters in Business Administration (Haas School of
Business, University of California, Berkeley, Evening & Weekend MBA
Program in 1993) and a Master of Science from the Bowling Green State
University (Ohio) to go with it.
The defining period of his life
Having
grown up in such positive surroundings, acquiring knowledge from some
of the best institutions, it appears only logical that his early career
happened to be with one of the best employers, if not the best, in terms
of providing the opportunities to learn while one grew into the
profession. His first job was at a start-up called Measurex Automation
Systems in 1986, which he quit in 1989 to move onto the technology
pioneer, Apple Inc. Although, Mr. Narayen was not known to have been an
out-and-out entrepreneur, Apple was a fertile ground for the well-bred
and aspiring to make it big. It provided him with an opportunity to work
and interact, and importantly, learn from the best in the business. As
he had also had a peep into the business aspects through his MBA course,
he seemed to have gained reasonably good perspective of the technology
business while at Apple. In fact, he himself credits his many years with
Apple as the foundations of his future as a CEO of a technology firm.
He says that it is under Mr. Gurusharan Singh Sidhu, his mentor at
Apple, he honed many of his leadership skills.
The
interesting often intriguing aspects of pioneering and innovations, and
insatiable thirst for trying for the impossible that is so Apple, is
what Mr. Narayen credits to have influenced much of his thought process
and working style in later years at other employers as indeed at one
which he co-founded.
After
many years at Apple which he had joined in 1989 holding many senior
positions, followed by his association with another electronics firm
Silicon Graphics where he was the director of desktop and collaboration
products, he decided it was time to give shape to his entrepreneurial
pursuits which he seemed to have nurtured through the course of his
stints with Apple and Silicon Graphics. Thus, he took the plunge into
the now flourishing technology business and co-founded ’Pictra,’ in 1996
which dealt in digital image-sharing on the internet. Although he was
able to raise a handsome amount of $10 as venture capital, Pictra did
could not sustain, and ended its brief span of existence. While he was
distraught at the failure of his pet project and also by the fact that
it was one of his rare failures, if one can term it as such, he was
quick to gather himself and look ahead. This experience taught him the
importance of timing, as it was clear to him, after the not so
successful Pictra, that it was way too early in his career, as also
perhaps the prevailing market conditions. This aspect was also brought
forth clearly when his bid to sell Pictra to Adobe did not work out.
The leap and success
Although his move to sell Pictra to Adobe did not materialize, what it
did succeed in was to get a favourable interest from the Adobe
management. The then CEO of Adobe, Mr Bruce Chizen, who was party to the
dialogue for the sale of Pictra, was quick to spot the spark in Mr.
Narayen, which was enough to get him an offer from Adobe. Mr. Narayen
was hired by Adobe in 1998 as vice-president and general manager of its
engineering technology group. There has been no looking back for the
ever-persevering and diligent Mr. Narayen ever since.
In
just a year he was promoted to senior vice president worldwide
products, and a couple of years later he was elevated to the post of
executive vice president, worldwide products marketing and development.
Subsequently, in 2005, he was promoted to president and chief operating
officer.
Having tasted both success and a bit of failure with his earlier roles
and his venture, Mr. Narayen, who knew he had it in him to be the leader
that he was soon going to be, put in all he had to give to Adobe.
Expectedly, he gained extensive knowledge of Adobe’s products and
platforms and customer experience along the way. So, his exceptional
operational leadership skills manifested in the various capacities
hereto, easily made him the ideal choice to lead Adobe as CEO. Although,
this wasn’t handed on a platter, as he was confronted with another
potential candidate for the top post. It was one of his former
compatriots at Apple who was vying for the position, and was also
equally well-placed as Mr. Narayen to succeed Mr. Chizen. But the fact
that Mr. Narayen was an engineer at heart with a solid technical
background - although not particularly a pitchman- tilted the decision
in Mr. Narayen’s favour, as his predecessor, Mr. Chizen, was also of
like technical background and it was a notion that that had to be the
natural succession.
Mr. Narayen assumed the CEOs post at Adobe in December 2007, and the
ride so far, although not entirely rosy, has been a reasonably
successful one. Under Mr. Narayen, and following on from the good work
done before, the company grew from strength to strength. With innovation
and accessability at the core, it has really expanded its horizons with
its range of products. This coupled with a handful of shrewd
acquisitions has made his stint in the top position at Adobe really
noteworthy, and has done enough to cement his place amongst the best
business leaders of the world. Under his leadership Adobe bought
Macromedia (for a reported sum of $3.4 billion ), Omniture ($1.8
billion), which helps analyse web traffic, Demdex that provides data on
online users, Auditude, a video advertising company, Day Software -- a
Switzerland-based company which makes web content management software,
and the very recent acquisition Efficient Frontier, a California-based
company that lets advertisers place ads on Facebook, buy keywords on
Google and purchase display ads on the web. The latest acquisitions also
point to the company’s belief that digital marketing and digital media
are going to be the platform on which businesses would increasingly rely
upon to make their presence felt.
Explaining the strategy where they Adobe sees digital marketing as its
largest Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Mr. Narayen himself said that
Adobe has supplemented the acquisitions with organic innovation that we
have built around social analytics.
While the company has recorded appreciable growth under Mr. Narayen’s
leadership and guidance, the journey of late has been somewhat
tempestuous one. First it was the apparent tussle with Apple with Steve
Jobs complaining about Flash on iPad and other Mac-enabled devices, a
supposition which was strongly contested by Adobe and Mr. Narayen
himself. This was followed by some apparently improperly handled media
reports which seemed to have raised many an eye brow from the developer
community. Then followed a situation wherein the developer community
which had been so dependent on Adobe products, signed a petition (over
700 signed through Change.org) seeking the removal of Mr. Narayen from
the CEOs post. This was partly due to, again, some ambiguity emanating
from reports about the pricing as well as accessibility issues, that has
dented the confidence of the developer community in the Adobe
management.
Whether or not the criticisms are well founded only time will tell but here are some, as reported on various forums and blogs.
Failure to address the threat to Adobe's brand that Apple presented;
failure to provide clear leadership in the web technology space where
Adobe is a key player; failure to consider the impact of perception on
the brand from a poorly worded and ill-conceived PR statement which has
done irrevocable harm to millions of jobs within the Flash Platform
ecosystem of technologies. And so on.
The situation and the criticisms notwithstanding, Mr. Narayen has
indeed been a worthy successor to Mr. Chizen, and one can only say that
he has done his bit in successfully shaping the growth and expansion of
the company. His leadership, technology insight and operational
expertise have strengthened Adobe’s culture of innovation, expanded the
company into new markets, and extended its product portfolio and global
reach. Adobe has been able to cement its role as a partner to other
technology groups in recent years, working with 19 of the world's 20 top
mobile phone handset companies, including Motorola, HTC, RIM,
Hewlett-Packard WebOS and Google, to bring Flash Player to their mobile
devices. Some 23 of the top 25 European companies, as measured by Forbes
magazine, use Adobe products, as do 23 of the top 25 global banks and
all the top 10 European banking groups.
Adobe’s products have also had a successful endorsement from the
television and movie industry. In television, the BBC used Adobe's
technology to create its highly successful iPlayer service, while in
films James Cameron used Adobe's Creative Suite 4 to create blockbuster
3D film Avatar. Also, the US football team's World Cup match against
Algeria was webcast through Flash, while the British Library is using
Adobe technologies to transform its online service.
No
wonder then that in 2009, Mr. Narayen was considered one of "The TopGun
CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.
And he does not seem to be sitting quite, as we have seen, and is
constantly looking to both, consolidate as well as grow and diversify
into newer areas such as digital marketing and digital media.
Other positions
His leadership and management skills were well acknowledged by many
including the President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack
Obama, who in 2011 appointed Mr. Narayen as a member of his Management
Advisory Board (PMAB). PMAB was established by an Executive Order in
April 2010 to advise on how to implement best business practices on
matters related to Federal Government management and operation focusing
on productivity, the application of technology and customer service.
That besides, Mr. Narayen is a Board Member of Stario.com. He has been a
Director of Metavante Technologies, Inc. since November 14, 2007. Mr.
Narayen has been a Director of Dell, Inc. since September 2009. He
serves on the Advisory Board of the Haas School of Business, University
of California at Berkeley, and is president of the board of the Adobe
Foundation, which funds philanthropic initiatives around the world.
Family
He is married to Reni Narayen whom he is believed to have met while
studying at Bowling Green State University. They have two sons, Shravan
(21) and Arjun (17), both of whom are also believed to be tech-savvy
like their father.
Philanthropy
Like
most expats as indeed business leaders, Mr. Narayen also does his bit
for the society. As mentioned above, he is the president of the board of
the Adobe Foundation which was created to honour the philanthropic
spirit of Adobe’s founders, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, by
leveraging human, technological, and financial resources to drive social
change and improve the communities in which Adobe has employees,
focusing on arts and creativity and local needs.
The Adobe Foundation funds and oversees Adobe Youth Voices, our global,
signature education program, and a Community Grants Program designed to
create strategic, high-impact partnerships with nonprofit organizations
within the areas of arts and creativity and youth services.
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