Maria Yap
Vice President, Digital Imaging, Adobe
“Dress for Success plays such a crucial role in breaking barriers and fostering a more equitable workforce and society. The much-needed resources, training, and networking opportunities this organization provides empowers so many more women to thrive in all aspects of their diverse personal and professional lives.
I am honored to be a 2024 Bay Area Women in Power Honoree alongside many incredible local leaders doing their part to champion the success of women in their field, organization, and community.”
Q & A With Maria
What is your biggest professional accomplishment?
Leading the success of Adobe’s Digital Imaging products – Photoshop and Lightroom – since 2016 has been one of my greatest professional accomplishments.
During my tenure, groundbreaking new generative AI-powered innovations in Photoshop, like Generative Fill and Generative Expand, popular features users know and love in Photoshop like Super Resolution and Content-Aware Fill, and Adobe Sensei AI-powered tools in Lightroom like Masking, Select People, and Denoise, have come to life.
I was also fortunate to lead the expansion of Photoshop’s footprint into the mobile world, with its launch on the iPad and Web, as well as the launch of Adobe’s Lightroom Ecosystem in 2017, a cloud-first photography solution available across desktop, mobile, and web. While I have immense pride in developing and shipping world-class products, what I consider my greatest accomplishment to this day is creating a team culture of creativity and innovation.
How have you or your company worked to elevate women?
In recent years, I’ve been honored to take on the role of executive sponsor for the Women at Adobe employee network, where I’m committed to finding ways to connect colleagues and build global communities. To foster connection and camaraderie within our organization, we regularly host fireside chats where we’ve established a safe space to discuss key workplace challenges, share insights and leadership perspectives, and celebrate each other’s success.
We’ve cultivated a community that empowers women to bring their most authentic selves to work – including through Adobe’s Women Executive Shadow Program. I’m proud of our efforts to empower every woman to have their voice heard, seek guidance from others, and engage in meaningful dialogue with their peers.
ABOUT MARIA
Maria Yap is the VP of the Digital Imaging organization at Adobe, which is responsible for some of the most successful product franchises at Adobe: Photoshop and Lightroom.
With more than two decades of product development experience building world-class offerings for creatives across products like Acrobat, InDesign, Creative Suite, Photoshop and Lightroom, Maria aims to enable a spirit of experimenting and facilitate a culture of learning. She combines meaningful customer insights with best-in-class software engineering practices to lead a highly collaborative, cross-functional team.
In addition to being the executive sponsor of the Women at Adobe employee network, a mentor in the Adobe Women Executive Shadow Program, and part of Adobe’s Leadership Circles, Maria is also on the Board of Directors for Ripple Effect Images.
Maria holds a degree in Design and Communication from American University. She currently lives in Santa Cruz, Calif. with her husband and two children.
Connect with Maria on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Dress for Success San Francisco/San Jose
Dress for Success San Francisco/San Jose (Dress-SF) is a leading nonprofit employment resource for unemployed and underemployed women*. Since 2005, we have provided career clothing, coaching, core skills, and community — free of charge — to more than 17,000 women throughout the Bay Area.
Our programs build confidence and determination from the inside out, empowering women with the tools they need to succeed in work and life. All our programs are offered at no cost to our clients.
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*We use the term "women" in a gender expansive way, to include cis, trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming, gender queer, and any woman-identified person.
Your Hour, Her Power
Dress for Success’ annual Your Hour, Her Power, which kicks off March 1st in celebration of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, is inspired by the belief that when a woman has access to education and job resources, their contributions strengthen communities, increase organizational effectiveness and business results and economies grow.
Over the past few years, we have seen women continue to face innumerable challenges. Women have left the workplace at an alarming rate and those that have remained struggle with significant issues with balancing childcare and housework, increased workloads and loss of confidence.
This year, Dress for Success is excited to bring back Your Hour, Her Power for another year to inspire hope and resilience among women by honoring groundbreaking women in leadership positions across various industries.
By giving the equivalent of just one hour of your pay, you not only give a Dress for Success woman access to programs, services, and tools that will help her achieve economic advancement, but you also join us in celebrating women leaders for the pivotal role they play in driving business and economic gains, and social and cultural change.