Veteran Adobe CEO quitting “to take a break”
SAN FRANCISCO - Bruce Chizen, chief executive of software maker Adobe System, said Monday he would step down, and President and Chief Operating Officer Shantanu Narayen will replace him Dec. 1.
Narayen will retain his title as president and join the board, Adobe said. He has been president and COO of the maker of the popular Photoshop, Flash and Acrobat programs for almost three years.
Narayen joined Adobe in 1998 as vice president and general manager of engineering. In January 2005 he became president and chief operating officer. Before Adobe, Narayen co-founded Pictra, a digital photo-sharing software company, and was a manager at Silicon Graphics and Apple.
Wall Street reacted negatively to the loss of Chizen, 52, a blunt-speaking executive known for keeping Adobe’s morale high. The stock closed at $42.19, down $1.05 as news dribbled out. After the announcement, the stock lost another $1.51 in after-hours trading.
Chizen, with Adobe 14 years, will work halftime as a strategic adviser until the end of fiscal 2008. He will also serve on Adobe’s board through the spring.
Chizen, who served as CEO for seven years as the company collected record profits, said in an interview he was stepping down “to take a break.”
Campus in Seattle
The San Jose, Calif., software maker - which has a campus in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood - has been on a tear in recent quarters, launching a slew of new programs for “creative professionals” - editors, videographers, Web designers and other workers willing to pay top dollar for sophisticated software.
Besides Photoshop, Flash and Acrobat, the company’s flagship products include the popular Creative Suite, which was updated in April and sells for $1,599 to $2,499.
Adobe reported in September that its fiscal third-quarter profit more than doubled on a 41 percent revenue increase. Bullish executives have predicted a sustained double-digit growth spurt.
“I’m not leaving under any cloud. There’s no severance agreement. I’m taking a break, and the reason I feel comfortable taking a break is because the company is in such good shape,” Chizen said.
“The reality is that Bruce and I have partnered over the past few years over fundamental strategy,” Narayen said Monday in a conference call. “With five years of double-digit growth, it’s clear to me that our strategy is working.”
“Amazing stuff”
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said Chizen has done “amazing stuff” - particularly after Adobe’s $3.4 billion purchase of Web software maker Macromedia, which closed in December 2005.
At the time, pundits speculated that the huge acquisition would sidetrack Adobe and give critical advantages to Microsoft, its main rival.
“This has nothing to do with the state of the business,” Munster said.
Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, Adobe’s co-chairmen, said in a statement that Chizen “helped transform Adobe from a company that was known mainly for its popular design products into one of the largest and most diversified software companies in the world.”