Do we like them?Do we like Melanie Perkins?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or acts found and a large, ongoing giving record, held back by a thin public record on social issues and this week's job cuts.
Melanie Perkins is the co-founder and CEO of Canva, the Australian design platform that Forbes now values at about US$42 billion. She built it with Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams, and Forbes estimates she and Obrecht each hold about 18%. She's one of the few women running a company that big.
The news is the bad kind. On 4 November she told staff the company would cut, change or relocate 1,271 roles, about 22% of a workforce of roughly 5,700, the first major restructure in its 13-year history. She said it was “without doubt the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history” and that the goal was to “refound Canva”. Canva's spokesperson said the figure includes people asked to relocate, so the number of actual job losses isn't clear.
Why? Reports say growth slowed for the first time in a decade, investors marked down the company's value, and serving AI features to mostly non-paying users was costly. Departing staff get at least six months' salary, a year of healthcare cover, their laptops and a grant of up to US$10,000 to start something. That's softer than most layoffs, though one analyst called AI an “existential threat” to Canva's core model. Plenty will still be cross, and an all-staff meeting is still to come.
On the harm test, there's nothing to report. In the pieces I read, there are no harmful words from her about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet. She isn't a culture-war type, and nothing connects her to conspiracy theories or the company she keeps. That's also a thin record, because she mostly talks business. The AI row, with her co-founder Obrecht telling creatives that resisting AI is “folly”, is about jobs and craft, not about harm to a group.
The good stuff is real. Perkins and Obrecht signed the Giving Pledge in 2021, promising more than 80% of their wealth. Through the Canva Foundation they've given over US$80 million by the end of 2025, including more than US$50 million of a US$150 million plan to send direct cash to people in extreme poverty in Malawi. More than 130,000 people there have received it. Her newest project, the Global Goals Platform, surveys people worldwide on the changes they most want to see.
So where do we land? A founder whose giving is genuine and whose public record has no mark against it, in a week when her company's staff are the ones paying for a rough year. How she handles the fallout from the cuts is the thing to watch. For now it's a solid yes with an eye on the next few months.