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Page 9 reading entrepreneur in the spotlight Melanie Perkins CEO co -founder of Canva

Could you tell us about yourself briefly?

I am the co -founder and CEO of Canva a platform that makes graphic design easy and fast for everyone.

I live in Sydney, Australia. I like kitesurfing and traveling.

When did you come up with the idea of Canva first?

Um, actually, it was long ago. Everything started when I was just a university student.

As far as I know, the current worth of the company is over $40 billion now.

What does it feel like to be the CEO of such a company?

Well, it is both hard and very rewarding at the same time.

It has been years since we started planning it, but finding the investors and innovative engineers was really difficult.

I see. It seems that it took a long time to convince the investors.

How long did it exactly take to make them believe in you?

Oh, quite a long time, indeed. To launch Canva, we needed investment and a tech team.

Finding the right people for both took two years because there is always the risk of rejection for entrepreneurs in the very beginning, you know.

And we indeed took a lot of risks while setting up Canva, but we never gave up.

Great. Let me ask you another question, Ms. Perkins.

What kind of characteristics are you looking for in your employees?

Hmm. Well, a lot of things.

First, we work as a team so they should adjust themselves to us.

Second, we want creative abilities.

Third, we want to see their enthusiasm for joining us.

These are also the characteristics of a typical entrepreneur.

Sure, but not all of them.

What's next? What are your future plans for Canva?

We've done such a small amount of what we'd like to do.

We will continue working hard, and we will always work on new solutions for graphic design by focusing on success, always and forever.

We are going to make more investments in our company as well.