Adobe Systems has appointed Michael Dillon as general counsel, corporate secretary and senior vice president, effective Aug. 23. Dillon succeeds Karen Cottle who is retiring after a decade as general counsel at Adobe.

He will be responsible for the company's global legal affairs, public policy interests, and compliance operations. 

Dillon, who has more than 25 years of corporate legal experience, joins Adobe from networking solutions provider Silver Spring Networks, where he served as general counsel and corporate secretary. Prior to this, he served at Sun Microsystems, prior to its acquisition by Oracle, serving as general counsel and corporate secretary from 2004 until 2010. Earlier in his career, Dillon served as general counsel and corporate secretary at optical networking company ONI Systems.