Melanie Perkins is a well-known Australian broadcaster. She is the co-founder and CEO of Canva, an online graphic design startup. She is a business owner who started her company in 2013. The company is currently valued billions of dollars and has a large user base.

What is the net worth and income of Melanie Perkins ?

She was named to both the Forbes 30 Under 30 and the Forbes Top Under 30 of the Decade lists in 2016. She’s also a proponent of making the workplace more diverse and inclusive (Canva has a workforce that consists of 41 percent women, much higher than the industry average of 28 percent ). Canva’s worth increased to $6 billion after the business raised $60 million in June 2020.

With a net worth of $1.3 billion, Perkins became Australia’s third richest woman. Only mining magnate Gina Rinehart ($16.25 billion) and TPG co-founder Vicky Teoh are ahead of her. Despite Canva’s good financial results, Perkins is not considering an IPO anytime soon.

Childhood

Melanie Perkins was born in Perth, Western Australia, Australia, in the year 1988. Her father is a Malaysian of Filipino and Sri Lankan origin, and her mother is an Australian native. Her father works as an engineer, and her mother as a teacher.

Perkins had already demonstrated an entrepreneurial flair at a young age. She started her first company when she was 14 years old, selling handcrafted scarves at markets all throughout Perth. She also aspired to be a professional skater, and she would get up at 4:30 a.m. every day to practise.

Education

Perkins majored in communications, psychology, and commerce at the University of Western Australia. As part of her major, she also taught pupils basic computer design. After seeing her pupils struggle with Adobe Photoshop and other sophisticated design platforms, she was inspired to create an easier and more efficient graphic design platform. Perkins left college at the age of 19 to pursue a career in business.

Early career

In 2007, Perkins and her future husband Cliff Obrecht co-founded Fusion Books. Fusion Books is a website that allows students to create their own school yearbooks using a drag-and-drop interface that includes a library of design templates such as images, artwork, and fonts. Despite the fact that she had meant to work on her first project, insufficient resources forced her to switch to another, Fusion Books was a huge success.

Perkins started working on Fusion Books at her mother’s house, with her parents helping with the printing. In the meantime, Obrecht would phone colleges and institutions to find new clients for the firm. Fusion Books would develop to become Australia’s largest yearbook company in a matter of years, later expanding to France and New Zealand.

Co-founder and CEO of Canva

Despite the success of Fusion Books, financing was running out. This inspired Perkins and Obrecht to seek out venture financiers who would not only fund Fusion Books, but also the firm that would later become Canva Inc. However, investors were hard to come by at first, with Perkins claiming that she was turned down by over a hundred investors in Perth.

When famed investor Bill Tai came to Perth in 2011 to judge a start-up competition, the opportunity arose. Perkins and Obrecht were able to pitch Canva during a dinner thrown by Tai, but they were unable to secure money. Instead, Tai invited them to successive kite-surfing get-togethers, which also happened to be get-togethers for IT investors. Some of these gatherings took place in Silicon Valley, requiring Perkins and Obrecht to travel across the country on a regular basis. Even in Silicon Valley, many companies turned down Perkins’ presentation until a former Google executive joined the team. Cameron Adams, a technical expert, joined the team and would assist Perkins in obtaining the funds that had been elusive for several years.

Personal Experiences

Melanie Perkins, the CEO of Canva, is married to Cliff Obrecht, her longtime boyfriend. Fusion Books and Canva were both started by the two of them. Obrecht proposed to Perkins with a $30 engagement ring while on a trip to Cappadocia, Turkey in 2019. The pair has been known to live humble lifestyles and have stated on several occasions that the majority of their wealth is donated to charity. Perkins enjoys traveling and kite-surfing, which she became interested in after Bill Tai invited her to monthly kite-surfing meetups.

Melanie Perkins’ ability to lead Canva to greater heights should not obscure the fact that she overcame tremendous obstacles to get to where she is now. And, despite her young age of 32, everyone believes she is only getting started.

10 Facts on Canva CEO Melanie Perkins

1. Melanie Perkins is an Australian entrepreneur. She is the CEO of a famous online graphic designing company, Canva.
2. Perkins has a Wikipedia page on her name. Likewise, various online sites and news portals have certain information about her.
3. Melanie’s age is 32 years. However, her actual birthday details are not yet revealed. But she is quite dedicated and energetic towards her career.
4. Perkins is of Australian nationality since she was born in Perth, Australia. Besides, she follows Christianity but her ethnicity details are still unknown.
5. Melanie is a gorgeous woman. She has a thin body with a fair complexion and a bright smile. Similarly, the woman has a decent height and a complementing physique.
6. The woman is happily engaged to her university sweetheart. Cliff Obrecht is her boyfriend and to-be-husband. The couple is together for many years and supports each other in their works.
7. Perkins definitely has a wonderful family. Despite that, the woman has not shared any info on her parents and siblings.
8. Melanie wanted to be an entrepreneur since she was a teenager. The woman launched her hand-made scarves business at the age of 14. Likewise, at 19 years, she ran her own company Fusion Books.
9. Perkins came out of an idea to launch a graphic designing business. So, she opened Canva in 2013. For now, the company is worth$6 billion dollars. Similarly, her net worth is $1.3 billion.
10. Melanie has an Instagram and LinkedIn account. She garners 7.3 K followers on Instagram and has 500+ connections on LinkedIn.

Facts of Melanie Perkins