Shantanu Narayen

Under CEO Shantanu Narayen’s leadership, the 38-year-old provider of design and publishing tools has continued to evolve into a massive subscription-based business. And despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, the software company recently announced results from its best third-quarter ever—revenue grew 14% year over year, hitting a record $3.3 billion. Adobe has benefited from growth in its digital media segment, its largest division, in particular, with demand rising for its subscription-based suite of tools for designing and publishing content and software for document creation and electronic signatures (yes, PDFs are still big business). Adobe’s diverse mix of customers, both large and small, has also helped Narayen to future-proof his company’s business. Now the CEO has a strategy for what he hopes will result in even more growth: In early November, Adobe announced the $1.5 billion acquisition of Workfront, a maker of “marketing workflow management” software.