Rob Burgess
Canadian businessman
Robert Kenneth Burgess (August 29, 1957 – December 21, 2025) was a Canadian executive in the technology industry. He was the chief executive officer of Macromedia from 1996 to 2005 and chairman from 1997 to 2005. Prior to that, he was CEO of Alias Research from 1991 to 1995.
Early life and education
Burgess grew up in Toronto, Canada and graduated from McMaster University with a bachelor of commerce degree in 1979. He was awarded the Wayne Fox distinguished alumni award from McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business in 2001, and in 2014 he received an honorary doctorate of laws.
Career
From 1984 to 1991, Burgess worked in key executive posts at Silicon Graphics (SGI), a startup in the then emerging field of 3D computer graphics. He started as a sales engineer, opened up Silicon Graphics Canada, 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, a 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 which emerged as the standard in computer animation software. On March 1, 2003, Alias was given an Academy Award for Technical Achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their development of Maya software.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rob Burgess” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.