Shantanu Narayen, the longtime chief executive of Adobe, said Thursday that he plans to step down after the company selects a successor, setting up a major leadership transition at one of the Bay Area’s biggest and most influential tech companies.
Adobe, headquartered in San Jose, said Narayen will remain chair of the board.
The change comes after 18 years with Narayen as CEO, a period during which Adobe helped define the software business by shifting products such as Photoshop and Acrobat to subscription models and expanding into creative, marketing and document software…