Melanie Perkins is the CEO and cofounder of Canva, an online design and publishing tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone. Since launching in 2013, Canva has grown to over 15 million users across 190 countries, with more than 1 billion designs created, at 36 designs per second — and used by more than 80% of the Fortune 500 plus small/medium businesses, nonprofits, teachers and students alike. Today, Canva has over 600 team members — across offices in Sydney, Manila, and Beijing — who are working together on a mission to empower everyone to design anything and publish anywhere. Melanie first came up with the idea for Canva while studying at the University of Western Australia. At the time, she was also teaching design programs to fellow students. After seeing students struggle, she created her first company Fusion Books, which took the idea of a simple design tool, and applied it to the niche market of school yearbooks. Having known all along that the technology Melanie developed could be applied more broadly, she set out to raise funding for Canva. Today, Canva is valued at US$2.5 billion, making Canva the second Australian startup to achieve Unicorn status.
