(Bloomberg) — Adobe Inc.’s top lawyer, Dana Rao, who played a central role in shaping its artificial-intelligence strategy and shepherding it through a failed antitrust battle, is leaving the company.
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“Dana has been a valuable member of our leadership team, and we value her contributions and counsel,” an Adobe spokesperson said Thursday in response to a Bloomberg News inquiry. As the company conducts a “thorough search” for a permanent successor, Chief Human Resources Officer Gloria Chen will lead Adobe’s legal organization, the spokesperson added.
Rao has played a central role in defining Adobe’s approach to generative AI. The company has called its products “commercially safe” because its models are largely built on its own image library and attempt to filter out copyrighted material and offensive visuals.
Also holding the title of “chief trust officer,” Rao has often championed Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative, which aims to establish standards around the use of AI-generated content.
He also led Adobe’s ill-fated attempt to buy design software startup Figma Inc. for $20 billion, which failed last year due to regulatory pressure in Europe and the United States.
Adobe also faces a lawsuit from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which alleged in June that the software company violated consumer protection laws by making it too difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions.
Rao joined Adobe in 2012 and before that served as associate general counsel at Microsoft Corp. and as an intellectual property and licensing attorney, according to his LinkedIn page.
“I am very proud of Adobe and what we have accomplished,” Rao said in a LinkedIn post Thursday. He wrote that he was stepping down to spend more time with his family, pursue hobbies and that once recharged, he “looks forward to what lies ahead.”
(Updated with Rao’s comments in last paragraph.)
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