Canva CEO Melanie Perkins

Summary

Business Daily - BBC World Service
Episode: Canva CEO Melanie Perkins
Date: February 20, 2026
Host: Zoe Kleinman, BBC Technology Editor

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Episode Overview

In this episode, BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman interviews Melanie Perkins, CEO and co-founder of Canva. Perkins shares insights into her journey from university dropout to tech billionaire, while emphasizing her commitment to philanthropy, the democratization of design, adapting to the AI revolution, and shaping a positive future for the next generation. The discussion covers Canva's global growth, Perkins' personal ethos, the evolution of the Australian tech scene, and her vision for the world in 2050.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Philosophy on Wealth and Purpose

• Charitable Giving, Not Personal Wealth
  • Perkins stresses that her billionaire status is not for personal enrichment but to give away wealth over her lifetime.
    • “It’s not money for me to go and buy things with, it’s literally to give away. And we’ve committed to giving it all away over our lifetime.” (Melanie Perkins, 01:37 and 06:31)
  • Outlines Canva’s “two-step plan”: build a valuable company and do the most good possible, including pledges of up to $150M to those in extreme poverty. (04:48–05:44)

2. Education for the ‘Imagination Era’

• AI and Skills for the Future
  • Perkins is concerned that students are not being equipped for a world transformed by AI, advocating for education that fosters creativity, adaptability, and problem-solving.
    • “It’s really important that we start to tool up our students for this imagination era.” (Melanie Perkins, 01:51, 07:42)
  • Draws a parallel to past technological disruptions (like calculators or the printing press), calling for harnessing new tools, not resisting them. (07:42–09:00)

3. Resilience of Professions in the Face of Technological Change

• Enduring Purpose, Evolving Tools
  • Perkins argues that while tools and workflows change with technology, the core purpose of professions like design or teaching remains constant.
    • “The end goal of each profession… actually stays remarkably similar.” (Melanie Perkins, 02:09)
  • She notes that whereas design used to be rare, today’s businesses need design at every touch point, creating more opportunities even as the nature of design work evolves. (09:00–10:31)

4. The Australian Tech Scene vs. Silicon Valley

• Homegrown Success and Support
  • Perkins contrasts Australia’s growing startup ecosystem with Silicon Valley, recounting how government schemes encouraged Canva to remain headquartered in Australia.
    • “We didn’t even know what a startup was when we first started… there’s an incredible amount of investors and startups… it’s certainly changed in the last decade.” (Melanie Perkins, 03:47)
    • “…the Australian government actually offered something called Commercialization Australia… that actually kept us in Australia.” (Melanie Perkins, 04:10)

5. Business Model and Generosity

• Free Products Fueling Growth
  • Highlighted Canva’s long-standing strategy of offering generous free products to nonprofits, schools, and users worldwide to promote creativity.
    • “We’ve had a free product, a very intentionally generous free product for the last decade and will forever.” (Melanie Perkins, 12:02)
  • Perkins mentions the acquisition and free release of Affinity design software, with millions of downloads in a short span. (11:52–12:37)
  • Monetization comes from users who opt for advanced features or Canva AI tools.

6. AI’s Disruptive Impact & Opportunities

• Navigating the AI ‘Bubble’ and AI Content ('Slop')
  • Perkins is unphased by hype cycles:
    • “We are building an enduring company that solves real problems for real people… it doesn’t matter too much to us what happens in the wider macroeconomic environment.” (Melanie Perkins, 06:59)
  • On AI-generated content, she stresses the importance of intentional, iterative human refinement:
    • “Every idea… has to go on a journey from chaos to clarity. AI can kind of help leapfrog towards that, but hopefully that isn’t the end product.” (Melanie Perkins, 13:33)
  • Refers to herself as a ‘sophisticated’ AI user, but admits everyone is on an evolving journey with these tools.

7. Overcoming Rejection and Female Founder Lessons

• Investor Rejection as Growth
  • Melanie recounts facing over 100 VC rejections, which ultimately sharpened Canva’s pitch and vision.
    • “The hundred investor rejections I got were extremely painful at the time. But I also used it to refine our pitch.” (Melanie Perkins, 15:06)
  • While she’d like to think things have improved for female founders, she credits hardships for Canva’s resilience and clarity.
    • “Maybe I would have been a little easier on myself, perhaps throughout.” (Melanie Perkins, 16:03)

8. Vision for 2050 and Community

• The ‘2050 Wall’ and Alleviating Loneliness
  • Perkins shares her practice of goal-setting for 2050, focusing on solving societal issues like loneliness, lack of purpose, and weak community ties.
    • “Everything good was once imagined. And so if we don’t imagine it, then it literally can’t be the reality that we live in.” (Melanie Perkins, 16:36)
  • Envisions a future with empowered, solution-oriented youth and vibrant, purpose-driven communities.

9. Personal Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance

• Email Boundaries and Switching Off
  • Perkins deliberately removed email from her phone to compartmentalize work and personal life.
    • “When I’m working I work… but then I like to not be working when I’m not working.” (Melanie Perkins, 17:58)
  • Wants to maintain healthy working habits, after years of overwork in the early days.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Wealth and Philanthropy:
  “The word billionaire has never sat right with me whatsoever because I really feel like we’re just custodians of that and our job is to use that money to help in the most meaningful way we can during our lifetime.” (Melanie Perkins, 05:51)
• On Education and the Future:
  “I really think we’ve gone from the information era to the imagination era.” (Melanie Perkins, 07:42)
• On AI Content:
  “Maybe everyone goes through their AI slop phase… I think it’s a process for everyone.” (Melanie Perkins, 12:51) “If you think your skills are done and dusted, if you think that you don’t have anything more to learn, I think that’s where the real problem stands.” (Melanie Perkins, 14:57)
• On Overcoming Adversity:
  “I think that the hardships were actually quite helpful. Helpful along the journey. I mean, maybe I would have been a little easier on myself, perhaps throughout.” (Melanie Perkins, 16:03)
• On Imagination and Society:
  “Everything good was once imagined.” (Melanie Perkins, 16:36)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:37 — Perkins on her giving philosophy and ethos as a billionaire
• 04:48 — Commitment to philanthropic giving through Canva initiatives
• 06:59 — Canva’s focus on enduring value vs. AI/bubble hype cycles
• 07:42 — ‘Imagination era’ and rethinking teaching for future jobs
• 09:00 — Design: Changing tools, enduring outcomes
• 11:52 — Canva’s acquisition of Affinity and commitment to free creativity tools
• 12:51 — Thoughts on ‘AI slop’ and personal journey as an AI user
• 15:06 — Lessons from investor rejections as a female founder
• 16:36 — The vision for 2050 and importance of imagination
• 17:58 — Work-life balance strategies and avoiding burnout

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Summary Prepared For:
Listeners interested in Canva’s story, technology’s impact on work and education, startup resilience, philanthropy through business, and insights into balancing technology, innovation, and societal well-being.

Transcript

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[Zoe Kleinman]

Hello, you're listening to Business daily on the BBC World Service. I'm the BBC's technology editor, Zoe Kleinman, and today I'm speaking to Melanie Perkins, the CEO of Canva, the graphic design platform. In an exclusive interview with the BBC. Speaking from Sydney, she tells me despite her billionaire status, her ethos is to do good.

[Melanie Perkins]

It's not money for me to go and buy things with, it's literally to give away. And we've committed to giving it all away over our lifetime.

[Zoe Kleinman]

She's worried. In a world of artificial intelligence, we're not equipping the next generation with the right skills.

[Melanie Perkins]

I think that the world that our students are going to be going in is a very different world and it's really important that we start to tool up our students for this imagination era.

[Zoe Kleinman]

But despite fears, the job market is rapidly changing and some jobs will not survive, including in design. She thinks professions are resilient.

[Melanie Perkins]

We're continuously needing to tool up and learn new skills. But the actual, the end goal of each profession I think actually stays remarkably similar.

[Zoe Kleinman]

Dealing with rejection, how a billionaire thinks in the democratisation of design. That's all coming up on today's program. From a university dropout to one of tech's most powerful women, Melanie Perkins. Story is remarkable. She launched Canva From Perth in 2013 with this mission, Empower the world to design. Today, the platform is used by 250 million people every month, offering tools for everything from wedding invites to pitch decks. Melanie overcame more than 100 investor rejections to build Canva into a profitable multi billion dollar company. She sat down with me and told me when she knew the concept was going to work.

[Melanie Perkins]

I think that over the journey you always find a little something that you get very overly excited about. And so in the early days when we started to see users go from zero to getting the first few, to getting a few hundred, to getting a few thousand, to getting hundreds of thousands, and when we crossed a million, couldn't believe it.

[Interviewer]

We're talking to you in Sydney, your Sydney hq. What's the vibe like in Australia? Is it very different to Silicon Valley?

[Melanie Perkins]

I think we have a great vibe in Australia, but fortunately our team is all over. In fact, I just found out today we've got 450 team members now in Europe, which is pretty incredible as well. So we've got 5,000 people across the globe in Sydney. Yeah, the vibe is pretty great. We're just heading into summer right now and I think the spirits are high.

[Interviewer]

Is the tech scene very different?

[Melanie Perkins]

When we started out with our very first company, FusionBooks, there was not a tech scene to be heard of. In fact, we didn't even know what a startup was when we first started. And now there is a burgeoning tech scene. There is an incredible amount of investors and startups and larger companies or startups that have grown over the years. And so it's certainly changed in the last decade.

[Interviewer]

Have you ever been tempted to move to Silicon Valley?

[Melanie Perkins]

Yes, in the very early days when we were trying to get that first round of funding, I think it would have been easy to move to San Francisco. But we were very fortunate that the Australian government actually offered something called Commercialization Australia, where they matched our funding that we received and that actually kept us in Australia because we were able to say to investors, hey, we can match the funding if we stay in Australia. So that was really helpful.

[Interviewer]

What are your thoughts about the social media ban?

[Melanie Perkins]

I think it's really important that young kids get to be young kids. I think the Australian government has really been on the front foot trying to ensure that that's the case.

[Interviewer]

I mean, you're a parent yourself. Do you worry about the impact of social media on kids?

[Melanie Perkins]

I think that the world that our daughter is growing up in is something that is constantly top of mind, making sure that everything from the other day she was asking me about when people don't have enough money to buy food, what do they do? And I would love the answer to be that everyone in the world has food, has enough food in their bellies. And I think that it's really on all of us to help make the world a world that we're proud to leave for the next generation. And so I think that's a constant thought process for me actually. We've got our two step plan at Canva. Build one of the world's most valuable companies and do the most good we can do. And as part of step two, we've given $50 million over the last few years. We've just pledged another 100 million over the next three years to give money to people who are in extreme poverty. And I don't think it should be considered just a problem that has existed for forever that we're going to leave the next generation, that some people on this planet don't have their basic human needs being met. So it's very much top of mind.

[Interviewer]

In fact, you're a billionaire yourself and you've pledged to give away much of your fortune, most of it. How is that going?

[Melanie Perkins]

Yeah, it's a very important thing. We wanted to start doing it as soon as we could because we know there's going to be so much to learn over the years to come. And so we have absolutely started that process. We've getting started quite actively in Malawi right now. But then with Canva, we've also been very active in that. We've given a paid product away for free to nonprofits and schools for quite some years now. The word billionaire has never sat right with me whatsoever because I really feel like we're just custodians of that and our job is to use that money to help in the most meaningful way we can during our lifetime.

[Interviewer]

It's really interesting to hear you say that being a billionaire has never sat right with you and yet that is what you are.

[Melanie Perkins]

It's not what I am because it's the amount of money that Canva is valued at that we. It's not money for me to go and buy things with, it's literally to give away. And we've committed to giving it all away over our lifetime.

[Interviewer]

Let's talk a bit about AI and the growing calls that it's a bubble and it's about to go pop. Do you think that's the case? And if it does, how will that impact Canva?

[Melanie Perkins]

We've always been focused on building a really valuable company and when it's fashionable to be spending at all costs, we have invested in being profitable. So being profitable for eight years, even when it was not the trendy thing to do, and that still applies today. We have always been about solving real problems for real people. And so whether or not something's in trend or out of trend, we are building an enduring company that solves real problems for real people. So it doesn't matter too much to us what happens in the wider macroeconomic environment.

[Interviewer]

Do you think that the way in which we're teaching children in schools is keeping up with the pace of this revolution? You know, the world of work that they enter is going to be very different to the world of work that we know.

[Melanie Perkins]

I really think we've gone from the information era to the imagination era. And the information era is what we've really built many of our schools around, which is learning knowledge, reciting knowledge, and then that's been built for a workplace which is really about knowledge management, taking knowledge and managing that. And I think that the world that our students are going to be going in is a very different world. And it's really important that we start to tool up our students for this imagination era. And so, rather than it being about what can you learn? It's about what questions can you know the answers to? It's actually about what questions can you ask, and how can you find out those answers with the tools and technology that we have available? It reminds me a lot of when calculators came in, and it was like, all the teachers were like, what are we going to teach our kids if calculators can do all the maths? And it's like, no, we need to take that technology, we need to utilize the technology to the best of our ability, and then we need to put it to good use.

[Interviewer]

But the other thing that's going on is that AI is totally reshaping the jobs market. And a lot of jobs that exist now are predicted to not survive, including maybe design. You know, CANVA was set up to democratize design, but there is a design industry. There are people, there are designers for whom that is the way they make their money.

[Melanie Perkins]

I think that we'll see across every industry that every profession changes quite radically. And if you think about when printing presses came in, the amount of jobs that were displaced because of that, or if you think about when TVs were invented or when, you know, even when we did a skit recently, when different technologies come into the music industry and what has happened over the years when the Gamma Phone was invented. Everyone was like, what's going to happen to music? But I think that the job, specifically the tools that you use totally change. That's been a constant trend that we see every couple of decades in every single industry. Those things change all the time. But the end outcome that you're trying to achieve doesn't really change. You can see a lot of those things extremely persistent over the years. The job of a teacher, the tools change consistently. But actually the job of nurturing a young mind and helping them to be equipped for their workforce over the years to come, that changes radically. But then the actual current of stays the same and the same. With design, I think actually what we're seeing is a proliferation of design. If you wind your mind back a couple of decades, design was that one billboard that would happen or that one ad that would be placed in the local newspaper. And now all of a sudden design is every single touch point with a company and we're seeing that time and time again. So the tools change. Absolutely. We're continuously needing to tool up and learn new skills. But the actual, the end goal of each profession I think actually stays remarkably.

[Zoe Kleinman]

You're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

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[Melanie Perkins]

Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?

[Grainger Advertiser]

Really? I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget. You can really have it delivered or pick it up.

[Interviewer]

Mommy's home.

[Melanie Perkins]

I think kid is walking up the slide really.

[Grainger Advertiser]

Autotrader, buy your car online. Really?

[Zoe Kleinman]

I'm the technology editor, Zoe Kleinman and today I'm talking to Melanie Perkins, the CEO of Canva. We're speaking as the company is riding high. Eight years in profit and a multi billion dollar valuation. It's continuing to expand its operations globally. Last year Canva acquired the UK based design company Affinity. They've recently made its product free to use.

[Melanie Perkins]

We've had 2.8 million people download Affinity already in that short period of time since we announced that it was free

[Interviewer]

and so what is the business model there? If it's free to use?

[Melanie Perkins]

Yeah. So we wanted to make it free because we believe creativity should be in everyone's hands and not just limited to a few. And then we hope that people come into the Canva ecosystem. So if they want to pay and they want to use Canva AI, that is totally something that they can do. But then, you know, with Canva itself, we've had a free product, a very intentionally generous free product for the last decade and will forever. And then when people want to pay because they think that we've got such cool features that they would like to pay for, then they can do that if they so fancy. But we've been very intentional that the product itself will be forever free.

[Interviewer]

What's next for Canva? Would you consider an ipo?

[Melanie Perkins]

It's certainly something on the horizon, but nothing, nothing to report there yet.

[Interviewer]

What do you think about the proliferation of AI slop? Does that bother you?

[Melanie Perkins]

I think everyone is going on their own AI journey, and I think when you first use AI, you think that the first output is good. And it might not be, in fact, but I think that the only way you get better at using AI is actually using it more. And then you start to realize how you need to shape it, how you interact with it, how that first piece is actually just a draft, and you need to be able to shape it from there. And so I think that maybe everyone goes through their AI slot phase where they're kind of learning how to use it and how to make it sound like them and what is authentically them. And so I think it's a process for everyone, and I think everyone goes on that by themselves, in their own time and their own journey.

[Interviewer]

And where are you in that?

[Melanie Perkins]

Well, I'd like to think I'm quite sophisticated at this point in time. There is a lot of editing, a lot of collaboration, a lot of going backwards and forwards, and then a lot of editing after the fact. I think that's something that Canva is really great for, is that you can put in something and then you can continue to edit and hone and refine, and then you can collaborate. There's this concept that I really like of going. Taking every idea has to go on a journey from chaos to clarity. And whether that's a document or the product or an idea needs to go on that journey. And so AI can kind of help leapfrog towards that, but hopefully that isn't the end product. I'm sure if you put in one query, write A story on Canva and then pop that out as your article. You'd probably have a few problems there, but you might use that to brainstorm some ideas and do some background research. And so finding how to use AI workflow and to really optimize your time and then optimize the output, I think is a journey that everyone is on. I'd like to think I'm quite a sophisticated AI user at this point in time, but I'm sure when I look back in a few years time and I look back at my productivity and my output, I probably am going to think that I was AI slop too. But that's only because it's a continuous journey and we're continuously learning and honing our skills. And I think that's something that we all need to be learners in this new world. You know, if you think your skills are done and dusted, if you think that you don't have anything more to learn, I think that's where the real problem stands.

[Interviewer]

When you started out, you were rejected by 100 investors early on. Do you think things have got easier for female founders?

[Melanie Perkins]

Yeah, I think, you know, the hundred investor rejections I got were extremely painful at the time. But I also used it to refine our pitch. And so every time I got a rejection, I would then use that to say they'd say I'm the same as some company and then I'd end up with another slide in my pitch deck that said this is where the companies fit and this is the huge gap in the market that they were resolving on. They'd say, I don't understand design. And so we had a lot of slides at the start that explained the design industry and how big it was because other people would say it's too small. And so those rejections we really used to fuel the clarity of that pitch deck. Has it gotten easier? I'd like to think so. But in a way, the challenges that we had at the start I think made our company better. So it probably wouldn't have been good for me to get the first check figured out on day one. I think that really helped to refine our strategy.

[Interviewer]

To frame it for yourself. Definitely. What would you do differently now?

[Melanie Perkins]

I feel like if I did anything differently, it could be like butterfly wings and maybe everything would have changed. So I wouldn't wish things to be completely different. I think that the hardships were actually quite helpful. Helpful along the journey. I mean, maybe I would have been a little easier on myself, perhaps throughout.

[Interviewer]

It does sound quite brutal. 100 rejections.

[Melanie Perkins]

It was, it was as brutal as it sounds.

[Interviewer]

I've heard that you have a mood board in your office with goals for 2050. What's the biggest priority for 2050?

[Melanie Perkins]

Ah, you've done your research. So my 2050 wall, it was really about thinking about all of the challenges that I am pretty worried about for the world. And my 2050 wall was sort of my solution to that is, you know, there's a quote that I love which is everything good was once imagined. And so if we don't imagine it then it literally can't be the reality that we live in. And so I think one of the big challenges for society is loneliness and lack of, lack of purpose. And if we kind of extend that out people not having much sense of a community. And I think my 2050 wall is the antithesis of that. It is about where community becomes really strong and vibrant around the world, where we have bigger goals we're trying to achieve for our planet, for our countries and for our local communities where we equipped kids in schools to solve problems and to actually do things with the skills, not just learning, they're actually starting to put it into practice to solve real problems in their community. And that's certainly the world that we're to help work towards. Whether or not we can achieve it, we certainly can't achieve it on our own. But I think that that's the world that we all would like to will into existence rather than one where we're passive observes and a freight train that we don't really want.

[Interviewer]

You said for 2025 you removed email from your phone. Did you keep that up?

[Melanie Perkins]

I pretty much don't have email in the back of my phone, which is really helpful. So when I'm working I work rather than kind of. I like to work really hard, but then I like to not be working when I'm not working.

[Interviewer]

Do you find it easy to just be sort of very single minded like that and switch off? I mean, what are your working hours like? At what point do you say, right, that's it.

[Melanie Perkins]

My aspirational working hours is finishing work at 7pm I can't say that I'm very good at that, but I am good at like once I've finished work, actually shutting my laptop and actually switching gears and doing whatever else that is spending time with family and going for walks. So yeah, I think it's really important. I think if you're always half working and half doing personal life, you never really get the opportunity to like switch gears, have a different mind space and be able to go into work fresh again the next day. And so I think it's really important, you know, I've certainly in the early days we worked seven days a week, 18 hours a day, which I don't think is necessarily healthy to do for years on end. So I think it's important to be able to do actually have some time off work.

[Zoe Kleinman]

That's all for today's Business Daily with me, Zoe Kleinman. You can hear more episodes just search for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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