Rob Burgess (born 1957) is a Canadian executive in the technology industry. He was the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Macromedia Inc. from 1996 to 2005 and chairman from 1997 to 2005. Prior to that, he was CEO of

Alias Research Alias may refer to: * Pseudonym * Pen name * Nickname Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Alias'' (2013 film), a 2013 Canadian documentary film * ''Alias'' (TV series), an American action thriller series 2001–2006 * ''Alias the ...

from 1991 to 1995.

Career

From 1984 to 1991, Burgess worked in key executive posts at

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

(SGI), a startup in the then emerging field of 3D computer graphics. He started as a sales engineer, opened up Silicon Graphics Canada Inc., and ran that division until 1990 when he became vice president of applications and moved to Silicon Valley. In 1991, Burgess returned to Toronto to become CEO of Alias Research Inc., a young publicly traded 3D software company. Under his guidance the Alias team orchestrated a financial turnaround and became the leader in high end 3D software, and went on to develop

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

which emerged as the standard in computer animation software. On March 1, 2003, Alias was given an

Academy Award for Technical Achievement The Technical Achievement Award is one of three Scientific and Technical Awards given from time to time by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (The other two awards are the Scientific and Engineering Award and the Academy Award of Me ...

by the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...

for their development of Maya software. In 1995, Alias was purchased by Silicon Graphics for $460M, and Wavefront Technologies for $180M. Burgess integrated Alias and Wavefront with Silicon Graphics and became President of the newly named Alias/Wavefront. Burgess became the CEO of

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems ...

in 1996 and held this position until 2005. He also served as board chairman from 1997 to 2005, a position he held when the company was acquired by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...

in a transaction which closed on December 5, 2005 for $4 billion, which was the fifth largest software acquisition at the time. Burgess joined the Adobe board at that time and served until 2019. Under Burgess' tenure, he led Macromedia’s transformation from a

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

based multimedia company to become the market leader in computer animation and multimedia authoring for the internet. While he was chairman and CEO, the vector animation product

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid ...

became the worldwide standard for multimedia authoring and playback and was available on 98% of

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

s worldwide.

Current Status

Rob Burgess currently sits on the board of directors of

NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

(NVDA), which he joined in 2011.

Early life and education

Burgess grew up in Toronto, Canada and graduated from

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical Ga ...

with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1979. He was awarded the Wayne Fox distinguished alumni award from the DeGroote school of business in 2001, and in 2017 he received an honorary doctorate of laws.

References

Living people McMaster University alumni American technology chief executives Silicon Graphics people Businesspeople in computing 1957 births {{US-business-bio-stub