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Melanie Perkins

Also Known As Perkins

chief executive officer of Canva

Education

  • Graduated - Stanford University

Overview

Melanie Perkins is the CEO of Canva,Inc.

Perkins enrolled at the University of Western Australia, majoring in communications, psychology and commerce. At this time, Perkins was also a private tutor for students learning graphic design. She noticed the difficulties students had in learning design programs such as Adobe Photoshop, where it would often take students a semester at university to be introduced to basic features of these complex design programs. Perkins thought there was a business opportunity in making the design process easier. Her idea was to make a design platform where no technical experience was required. She dropped out of university at age 19 to pursue her first business with Cliff Obrecht, Fusion Books.

Fusion Books was founded by Perkins and Obrecht in 2007. Fusion Books allowed students to design their own school yearbooks by using a simple drag-and-drop tool equipped with a library of design templates that could be populated with photos, illustrations, and fonts. Originally, Perkins wanted to develop software that made the entire design process easier but due to the competition with large companies and her lack of resources, she concluded ‘it did not seem the logical thing to do’. Perkins's mother was a teacher who would also co-ordinate the school yearbook. Perkins saw how much time was required to design a yearbook and thought the high level of consumer friction would make yearbooks a good niche to test the idea for Canva.

Early Life

Melanie Perkins was born on 13 May 1987 (age 36 years) in Perth, Australia.

Career

  • Canva,Inc. - CEO

Reference

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