Country Manager - 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.