Country Manager - South Africa

About the Team

Canva’s International group is a diverse, distributed team focused on driving growth in our priority regions. As part of our empowered regional model, the Country Manager role is designed to act truly local, while leveraging Canva’s global scale.

You’ll partner closely with leaders across product, marketing, content, education, B2B, partnerships and comms to build and execute a clear growth plan for South Africa.

About the Role

The South Africa Country Manager is the local owner of Canva’s growth, brand and partnerships in the market. This is a player‑coach role with full accountability for user growth (MAU), revenue (ARR), and the strength of Canva’s local ecosystem.

What you’ll do

• Own market growth end‑to‑end. Act as the founder of Canva South Africa, setting and delivering ambitious MAU and ARR growth targets.
• Plant seeds. Build out our expansion plans for our South Africa frontier markets - Nigeria and Kenya.
• Build and execute the country strategy. Develop a clear multi‑year plan grounded in local user insight, market dynamics and Canva’s global priorities.
• Lead partnerships. Identify, build and activate high‑impact partnerships across education institutions, government bodies, enterprise, NGOs, creators and platforms. Turn partnerships into measurable growth levers, not logos.
• Localise the Canva experience. Work with local and global teams to adapt product, content, pricing and packaging to local needs, cultures and use cases.
• Create and lead a high‑performing local team. Hire, inspire and coach A‑players, working closely with regional and global specialty leads.
• Own education and sponsor B2B growth. Act as the local owner forCanva for Education and sponsor Canva for Teams, supporting pipeline creation and credibility.
• Run the local operating cadence. Align regional and global workstreams, prioritise ruthlessly, and move fast.
• Own the budget. Allocate spend with a founder mindset, maximising impact and learning velocity.
• Be the public face of Canva. Represent Canva across press, events, community and partner engagements.

What we're looking for

• Proven market builder. Experience launching, scaling or leading a market for a global tech or SaaS company, or as a founder / early leader.
• Deep partnerships experience. Demonstrated track record of building and monetising strategic partnerships that drive distribution, adoption or revenue.
• Strong commercial instincts. Comfortable owning numbers, setting targets and driving MAU and ARR growth.
• Founder‑level ownership. Bias to action, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to do and lead at the same time.
• User‑obsessed. Deep curiosity for local users, their motivators and barriers, and the discipline to turn insight into action.
• People leader. Proven ability to build, inspire and coach high‑performing teams.
• Product‑minded. Able to translate market and user insight into clear product and content requirements.
• Analytical. Obsessed with KPIs and able to turn messy data into clear priorities.
• Strong communicator. Confident influencing senior stakeholders locally and globally; fluent in written and spoken English.
• Values aligned. Deeply motivated by Canva’s mission and ways of working.