The Leadership of Melanie Perkins

Leadership in creative industry

1. Introduction

For the younger generations, Melanie Perkins could be considered one of the most successful and influential leaders in the Australian creative industry. In this report, I will review Melanie Perkins' leadership values, styles and followers using the SCOT analysis approach, and discuss her advocacy of co-design and diversity support.

2. Review

Melanie Perkins is an Australian businesswoman and entrepreneur. She is the CEO of the business and a co-founder. She and her cofounders launched Canva in 2012.

figure1 report structure I created

Leadership Values 

Melanie Perkins, the co-founder and CEO of Canva, is known for her strong leadership and vision. Some of the key leadership values that shape her behaviour include:

Vision

Melanie Perkins has a strong vision for Canva and its mission to democratize design. She is dedicated to creating a product that is accessible and easy to use for people around the world, regardless of their design background. Perkins believes it's about having a distinct and inspiring vision, and then giving people the space and framework to make it happen themselves(Powell, 2015).

Disruption

Previous design tools either produced basic items that looked unattractive or were too expensive and challenging to learn (Venkataraman & Maiden, 2022). Perkins argued that the company's objective of providing beautiful graphic design to everyone, rather than just those with the resources and expertise to use complex software like Adobe Suite, has largely been achieved by avoiding traditional corporate hierarchies and bureaucracies(Powell, 2015).

Reflection

Many assumptions about how businesses should operate, according to Perkins, are simply false. Internal competition only diverts valuable energy away from the things that truly matter(Powell, 2015).

Participation

Perkins and her leadership team are confident in the ability of the teams to solve issues and develop ideas, Canva has a flexible and unstructured organisational structure. Perkins does not require early sketches and plans for new features. She compared the sign-off procedure at her company to "decision trees," with each branch spreading away from the executive's stem when needing final approval rather than among their smaller team or even on their own(Powell, 2015).

Leadership Styles

Shared Leadership

Perkins believes in the power of teamwork and collaboration, and she encourages her team to take ownership of their work and share ideas. This approach adheres to the shared leadership principles, which emphasise the distribution of leadership responsibilities across the team. Perkins is able to foster a culture of shared ownership and responsibility by empowering her team to take on leadership roles(Gilchrist, 2020).

Participatory Leadership

Participatory leadership could be shared, distributed, decentralised, collective and collaborative. Companies are evolving. There has been a paradigm change in favour of more adaptable and human-centred working methods. 

She encouraged employees to share their ideas and contribute to the company's vision. Perkins is known for seeking out feedback and input from her team, customers, and other stakeholders. She values the perspectives of others and encourages everyone to participate in the decision-making process. This participatory approach is consistent with the principles of participatory leadership, which emphasizes collaboration and inclusion.

3. Method

SCOT Analysis of Melanie Perkins 

Strength

Internally(cofounder and employees’ satisifaction)

Internally, Perkins has a close relationship with her employees. She encourages her team to take ownership of their work and to share ideas and feedback. She is accessible and approachable, and she values the perspectives of her employees. This approach has helped to foster a culture of trust and respect at Canva, which has in turn contributed to the company's success.

The business didn't really get going until 2012. Cameron Adams and Dave Hearnden are two tech co-founders that Lars Rasmussen, Perkins, and Obrecht were able to find with the aid of their tech advisor and the co-founder of Google Maps(Gilchrist, 2020).

Enternally(customers loyalty)

Externally, Perkins is highly regarded by customers and industry experts alike. She is known for her customer-centric approach, and she has built a reputation for creating products that are intuitive, user-friendly, and accessible. She is also a respected thought leader in the design industry, and she frequently speaks at conferences and events.

85% of Fortune 500 organisations are already using the young founder's platform. Now, Canva has helped generate close to 2 billion designs across 190 countries(Gilchrist, 2020).

Challenges 

Melanie Perkins has faced several challenges in her journey as an entrepreneur. For instance, Perkins will be able to more directly compete with the high-end design software produced by IT behemoths like Microsoft and Adobe (Gilchrist, 2020).

Opportunities 

The additional funds, according to Perkins, will be used to grow the 700-person workforce across Sydney, Beijing, and Manila as well as to develop the company's for-profit services, Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise(Gilchrist, 2020).

figure 2 Canva timeline I created

4. Further Research

Co-design

Co-design, as depicted in the diagram, aims to change this by prioritising relationships, employing creative tools, and developing capability. It makes use of inclusive gatherings to share knowledge and power. For instance, Perkins and her team spent a lot of time in the early days of Canva working with real users to understand their needs and pain points. They interviewed users, gathered feedback, and observed how people used the tool in real-world situations. This allowed them to improve the product and make it more user-friendly. Melanie Perkins' co-design approach was critical to Canva's success, which has grown into a multibillion-dollar company with millions of users worldwide.

Diversity Support 

Perkins has been vocal about the need to increase diversity and representation within the tech industry. It is noted that 50% of roles hired in the United States in 2021 will be filled by women, 21% of our Engineering hires in 2021 will be filled by women (the Australian average is 19%* women), and 41% of our Product hires in 2021 will be filled by women(Jennie, 2022).

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, the key leadership values of Melanie Perkins could be vision, disruption, reflection and participation and the leadership style could be considered shared leadership and participatory leadership. Therefore,  her approachable, supportive, and empowering leadership styles helped to build a culture of trust, collaboration, and innovation at Canva and has contributed to the company's success.

References

Gilchrist, K. (2020, January 10). How a 32-year-old turned a high school yearbook idea into a $3.2 billion business. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/09/canva-how-melanie-perkins-built-a-3point2-billion-dollar-design-start-up.html

Jones, K. (2014, October 12). Where are the women in IT? The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/where-are-the-women-in-it-20141003-10pp2n.html

Powell, R. (2015). POWER TO THE PEOPLE. The Australian Financial Review.

Jennie, C. (2022, February 11). The importance of diversity at Canva and how we are working on it. Medium. https://medium.com/canva/the-importance-of-diversity-at-canva-and-how-we-are-working-on-it-6c714aafffe2

Venkataraman, S., & Maiden, S. E. (2022). Yearbook Inc. (A): The Start-Up Years. Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4085008