Melanie Perkins

Who they are

Melanie Perkins is CEO and Co-founder of Canva — started her first company, Fusion Books, at 19 while still at university, and built Canva from a seed-stage startup in 2012 into a platform serving over 200 million users.

Person

Melanie founded Canva in 2012 when it launched with roughly $3M in early funding — she'd spent the prior five years running Fusion Books, an online yearbook-publishing system she co-founded straight out of university. Before that, her only corporate stint was a PR internship at Weber Shandwick, and she worked as a technical assistant and tutor at the University of Western Australia, where she studied Arts and Commerce (communications, psychology, marketing, and management) before dropping out at 19 to pursue Fusion Books. The through-line is clear: she's been building design-democratisation tools since before that framing existed. She also completed UWA's Innovation Excellence Program in Commercializing Innovation in 2009, which likely sharpened her thinking about turning the Fusion Books insight into a bigger platform. Her earliest venture was a handmade scarves business she ran at age 14. On LinkedIn, she posts on Canva product launches and AI features, the founder journey, imagination and creativity, social impact (including the Canva Foundation's partnership with GiveDirectly on direct cash transfers in Malawi), and mental health and working habits. She has spoken at SXSW Sydney (2023) and delivered the keynote at Canva Create 2025, and has appeared on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast discussing Canva's growth.

Company

The most recent development is Canva's July 2026 launch of Code 2.0, bringing AI website building to all users — an expansion beyond design into broader creative output. Before that, Canva Create 2026 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles unveiled Offline mode, Pro Design suite, Learn Grid, Print Shop, and AI 2.0, with integrations across Slack, Gmail, Google Drive, Zoom, HubSpot, Microsoft, Notion, and Atlassian. In October 2025 Canva launched the Canva Design Model — described as the world's first AI model trained to understand the full complexity of design — following its July 2024 acquisition of Leonardo.AI and 120 AI researchers. Also in late 2025, Canva made the professional-grade Affinity suite completely free, drawing 1 million signups in four days. IPO signals are stacking: in August 2025 Canva ran an employee share sale at a $42 billion valuation, redomiciled its parent entity to Delaware, raised $560 million in a Series D extension led by Franklin Templeton, and in November 2024 hired Kelly Steckelberg — former CFO of Zoom through its IPO — as its new CFO.

Market

Canva leads the web-based graphic design market with approximately 35% share and holds roughly 46% of the presentation software market — ahead of Microsoft PowerPoint at 23% — serving over 200 million users across 190+ countries. Its main rivals are Adobe (Express, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), Figma, Microsoft Designer, Visme, and Piktochart; Adobe's failed $20 billion bid for Figma, terminated in December 2023 on regulatory grounds, left the competitive field unsettled and gave Canva room to move upmarket via the Affinity acquisition. The broader pressure is that Adobe, Microsoft, and Google are all embedding AI-powered design tools into existing platforms, while IP governance concerns around AI-generated content and evolving AI regulation frameworks add friction to Canva's enterprise push.

Network

Melanie's closest working relationships are with her two co-founders: Cliff Obrecht (COO and her husband) and Cameron Adams (Chief Product Officer), who joined the founding team in 2012. Her executive bench includes Zach Kitschke as Chief Marketing Officer, Jennie Rogerson as Global Head of People, and Kelly Steckelberg as CFO — a leadership team assembled with an eye toward scale and public-market readiness. She's also appeared publicly with Lenny Rachitsky (of Lenny's Newsletter), who interviewed her about Canva's growth.

Cliff Obrecht· Co-Founder and COO, Canva
Cameron Adams· Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Canva
Zach Kitschke· Chief Marketing Officer, Canva
Jennie Rogerson· Global Head of People, Canva
Kelly Steckelberg· Chief Financial Officer, Canva
Lenny Rachitsky· Author, Lenny's Newsletter

How they likely show up

Founded Fusion Books at 19, then Canva at 21 — she has been a company-builder since before most people finish a degree, suggesting she operates with extreme long-term conviction rather than short-cycle thinking.
Long tenure as CEO of a single company since 2012 → she thinks in decade-long arcs; she is not a job-hopper optimizing for optionality.
Posts publicly on imagination, creativity, and social impact alongside product news → she is comfortable being visible and linking her personal values to the company's brand publicly.
Meditation, walking, and structured routines cited as burnout-prevention practices → she is likely deliberate about energy management and probably respects others who are self-aware about sustainable output.
Scaled from a seed-stage launch to 200 million users without leaving the CEO seat → she has managed radical organizational complexity personally, so she responds to operational specificity, not conceptual generality.
Active philanthropic engagement (GiveDirectly, Canva Foundation) woven into her LinkedIn content → social impact is not a side note for her; it's part of how she frames success.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific Canva Create 2026 announcement (Code 2.0, AI 2.0, the Design Model) — she will engage more if it's clear you've tracked what she's actually shipped, not just the valuation headlines.
→ Ask about the Fusion Books-to-Canva transition — it's the origin story she's told many times but clearly cares about, and it reveals how she thinks about product insight versus execution.
→ Don't treat the IPO as the headline; the product arc (Design Model, Affinity going free, Code 2.0) is what she's leading with publicly — match that framing.
→ The GiveDirectly partnership and Malawi work come up in her own posts — if social impact is relevant to your conversation, reference it specifically rather than generically.
→ She has spoken about imagination and creativity as a philosophy — if you want to go conceptual, use those words rather than innovation-speak.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Code 2.0 launching in July 2026 — Canva moving into AI website building is a signal that she's expanding the platform's definition of 'design,' worth exploring what that means for the product boundary.
Bring up the Affinity move: making professional-grade design software completely free and getting 1 million signups in four days is an aggressive upmarket play worth asking about — it's recent, specific, and bold.
Reference the Fusion Books origin — she built an online yearbook tool as a teenager at UWA, which is the direct conceptual ancestor of Canva; it shows you understand where the 'anyone can design' thesis actually came from.

Discovery questions

The Canva Design Model in October 2025 was described as the first AI model trained to understand the full complexity of design — how does that change what you can build compared to layering on a general-purpose model?
Making Affinity completely free got 1 million signups in four days — how do you think about converting professional designers who came in through Affinity versus the core Canva user base?
You redomiciled to Delaware and hired a CFO who shepherded Zoom through its IPO — what does 'IPO-ready' actually mean for Canva at this stage beyond the structural moves?

Avoid

Don't open with valuation figures or 'unicorn' framing — she consistently leads with product, users, and mission, and leading with the $42 billion or $65 billion number signals you've read the headlines rather than done the work.

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