Melanie Perkins
Melanie Perkins is an Australian billionaire technology entrepreneur and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Canva, an online graphic design platform. She previously co-founded Fusion Books, a web-based yearbook publisher.
In 2023, she ranked 89th in Forbes list of "Forbes [list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women|World's 100 most powerful women]" and 92nd in Fortune
Early life
Perkins was born in 1987 in Perth, Western Australia, to an Australian-born teacher and a Malaysian engineer of Filipino and Sri Lankan heritage. She attended Sacred Heart College, a secondary school located in the northern Perth suburb of Sorrento. While at high school, Perkins trained seriously in figure skating and started a small business selling handmade scarves.After high school, 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. Perkins has said the slow learning curve of traditional design tools prompted her to explore simpler, web-based alternatives. She left university at age 19 to pursue a startup with Cliff Obrecht.
Career
Fusion Books
In 2007, Perkins and Obrecht founded Fusion Books, which let schools create yearbooks using an online drag-and-drop editor and template library. The business grew in Australia and later operated in New Zealand and France.Canva
Perkins and Obrecht began pitching a broader design platform in the early 2010s and met investor Bill Tai during a visit to Perth. Through Google Maps co-creator Lars Rasmussen, who advised the project, they were introduced to former Google designer Cameron Adams, who joined in 2012 and became Canva’s third co-founder and chief product officer. Canva launched publicly in 2013 and has reported periods of profitability as it scaled.Personal life
Perkins and Obrecht married in January 2021 on Rottnest Island. Later that year, they joined the Giving Pledge, committing at least half of their fortune to philanthropic purposes., the Australian Financial Review assessed Perkins' and Obrecht's joint net worth as 14.14 billion. As of August 2025, Forbes estimated Perkins' net worth at $5.8 billion.