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Saigin Govender
Sr Director, GenAI @Adobe || ex: Meta AI Research (FAIR) | Amazon Alexa (Founding Team) | Tumblr CPTO
Saigin Govender is a seasoned technology executive with over 20 years of experience in artificial intelligence, product management, and engineering. He currently serves as the Senior Director and Head of Product Management for Generative AI Models at Adobe. His career includes significant roles at several leading tech companies.
Career Highlights
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Adobe: Currently leads product management for generative AI models.
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Meta: Served as Director of Artificial Intelligence, overseeing product development for the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) division.
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Block Renovation: Held the position of Chief Product Officer/Chief Technology Officer at this Series C startup focused on the renovation industry.
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Tumblr: Worked as Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer, managing a platform with over 200 million monthly active users.
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Verizon Media: Served as Vice President of Product Innovation.
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Amazon: Was part of the founding team for Alexa, contributing to its launch and scaling.
Education
Saigin Govender earned a Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering with a specialization in Nanotechnology from the University of Toronto. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD, with campuses in France and Singapore.
Background
Originally from South Africa, Govender immigrated to Canada and later to the United States, where he currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.12
Highlights
What an exciting start! We just shared a preview of our upcoming video generation model. I am blown away by the results of our model and the professional-level quality it achieves. You can get a glimpse of some of the examples here: https://lnkd.in/gPS8gsaY . To boot, it’s commercially-safe and trained off ethically-sourced data. A big congratulations to the talented team on pulling off this incredible accomplishment!!
#adobe #firefly #videogeneration #ai
Creativity has always been close to my heart. Whether it’s painting, writing music, editing photos and videos, or carpentry, you will usually find me filling my free time with some sort of creative pursuit (http://www.saigin.com). For many of these pursuits, I rely on Adobe’s creator tools, and from time-to-time catch myself daydreaming, “wouldn’t it be something to actually work on building these tools?”
I am therefore beyond thrilled to share that I have joined Adobe as Senior Director of Product Management, leading Generative AI Models and Services. This means building the image, video, audio, 3D and language foundation models - collectively known as Firefly - that superpower Adobe’s family of apps (Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, etc). I feel incredibly lucky and grateful for this rare opportunity that draws upon both my passion for creativity, and my experience in AI research.
What’s more - amid all the AI hype - AI at Adobe is real. It is not a shiny side project lacking a sustainable business model. Instead, it is core to fundamentally improving and simplifying the creator experience, core to growing and retaining subscribers, and core to propelling Adobe’s $250B enterprise value. From my conversations, it is clear that Adobe recognizes the profound importance of AI, and has the vision, conviction, ecosystem and resources, to truly innovate, and transform creativity for the better. For all these reasons and more, I cannot think of another role that checks more boxes for me, both personally and professionally.
I want to thank the stellar team at Adobe for welcoming me onboard:
- Urmila, for hands-down being the best executive recruiter I’ve worked with
- Ram, for introducing me, and who I’m so excited to (re)partner with after an amazing run at Meta
- Zeke, Ely and Alexandru, for trusting me with this mission-critical responsibility
- Benjamin, Chitra, Jingwan (Cynthia) Lu, Ersin, Rebecca and others, for the inspiring and empathetic conversations that got me so excited about working together.
When I decided to embark on a sabbatical last year, I wasn’t sure where the road would lead. While I had been contemplating a sabbatical for some time, it was still an uncomfortable thing for me to act upon, and truth-be-told, I had my second thoughts right before resigning. Looking back, I am certain I would not have found this role, had I not taken time off. It gave me the space to reflect, and be very deliberate, patient and stubborn in choosing my next role. I will someday hopefully write about the merits of taking a sabbatical - until then, if you are considering one, I am happy to share my own experience and advice.
Thank you to everyone who’s been a part of my journey. I’m so excited for all that’s ahead - stay tuned!
