Job Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Where and how you can work

This role is based in our flagship campus in Sydney. But you have choice in where and how you work. That means if you want to do your thing in the office (if you're near one), at home or a bit of both, it's up to you!

About the role

As the Chief of Staff (known internally as Leadership Operations), you’ll act as a force multiplier to the lead of one of Canva’s largest (over 500+) and most impactful orgs - Content & Discovery (C&D).

The 500+ C&D plays a key role in Canva’s mission by building the world’s most useful, relevant, diverse, and inspiring content library, and helping users discover the best content for their job to be done.

In this role, you’ll extend the reach, capacity and impact of the C&D Lead, driving clarity, prioritisation, and alignment across strategic business priorities that span product, communications, operations, and leadership engagement.

You’ll play a critical role in enabling the success of the C&D Lead, their leadership team, and the broader C&D organisation by providing strategic direction, building the right spaces for effective collaboration, and proactively solving business challenges that unlock scale and impact.

You’ll also lead C&D’s operations team, made up of Operations Business Partners and Admin Business Partners. While the Admin BPs focus on unlocking capacity for leaders through world-class support, the Ops BPs partner with teams to deliver on core operational cadences, strategic planning, and goal execution. Together, you’ll help C&D deliver on its crazy big goals.

If you thrive in ambiguity, love juggling multiple competing priorities, and enjoy connecting the dots across people and priorities, this role is for you.

What you’d be doing in this role

As Canva scales, change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think that's all part of the fun. We move fast here at Canva, and this role will certainly keep you on your toes.

At the moment, this role is focused on:

• Strategic partner to C&D Lead: Act as a trusted thought partner, challenger, the connector, consolidator and communicator across multiple high priority work streams. You’ll be a trusted sounding board for decisions and strategic goals, structure and consolidate requests and communicate to the wider business.
• Planning and operations: Coach a small but mighty operations team, oversee planning cadences and reporting processes, and ensure C&D is set up to meet its goals.
• Represent the Lead: Step into meetings or projects on behalf of the C&D Lead, ensuring key workstreams are covered and moving forward.
• Triage and prioritisation: Be the first point of contact for inbound requests, whether it’s budgets, founders’ request, projects, approvals or urgent escalations. You’ll ensure the right context and sequencing for the leads’s input.
• Drive planning and operational rhythm: Support key business cadences like QBRs and goal planning. Help build context and alignment across a complex org of 45+ team leads, including document creation and facilitation.
• Proactively drive projects forward: Driving key projects and initiatives that are critical to C&D. This will include cross-cutting project management with stakeholders that sit in many different parts of Canva.
• Strong people connector: Build strong and trusted relationships with key stakeholders across the business to ensure visibility, and alignment between C&D and the business.
• Own the day to day: In partnership with the Admin BP, help ensure the Lead’s time is spent where it matters most—triaging meetings, shaping agendas, and creating space for high-impact work.
• Zoom in and out: Bring strong attention to detail while never losing sight of the bigger picture. You’ll use data, trends, and context to drive initiatives that have a measurable benefit to Canva and the C&D Group.

You're probably a match if you have

• 7 + years of experience in in strategy, planning or operations, finance/investment banking or business leadership, ideally within SaaS, product, design or content in scaling and fast pace organisations.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to connect the dots between business priorities, people and impact.
• Proven operational expertise, running processes at pace and scale, that span multiple markets, across multiple regions.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder skills, with experience influencing senior leaders and driving alignment across diverse teams.
• An ability to operate in ambiguity with a strong bias for action and instinct for when to escalate, delegate, or drive things yourself, with the ability to move complex and critical initiatives forward, often navigating the new and unknown.
• Great visual communication and design skills, especially when simplifying complex ideas(Canva’s made that bit easy!).
• A people-first mindset, thriving on on communicating cross-functionally, across multiple business areas and levels, managing complex projects with clear, succinct and targeted comms to engage multiple audiences and drive solutions forward.
• Highly efficient and proactive, able to juggle priorities, manage competing demands, and stay calm under pressure.
• Data literacy and technical fluency with confidence navigating metrics, dashboards, and operational tools.
• Operational leadership experience having led or coached high-performing teams in planning, strategy, or operations.
• Self-motivation and a growth mindset, always learning, bringing clarity to chaos, and moving quickly with purpose.

What's in it for you?

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too. We also offer a stack of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.

Here's a taste of what's on offer:

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.

Other stuff to know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.