ADVERTISEMENT

Company News

Canva Hires Former Zoom CFO Steckelberg in Move Signaling IPO

A signage of Canva Inc. at the company's headquarters in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. To earn a bigger slice of the $15.4 billion creative software market, Canva is focusing on the high-margin enterprise market currently dominated by Adobe. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg (Brent Lewin/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Canva Inc., a developer of creative design software, hired former Zoom Video Communications Inc. Chief Financial Officer Kelly Steckelberg as its top financial executive.

The company, among the chief competitors to Adobe Inc., also on Monday said it recently was valued at $32 billion, up from $26 billion in a fundraising round earlier this year. Investors have long viewed Canva as a candidate to go public, though the 11-year-old company hasn’t disclosed any concrete plans for such a move. Steckelberg will start her new job on Nov. 26, Canva said in a statement.

Zoom said in August that Steckelberg would resign after seven years as its CFO. She stayed at the company until last month to help with the transition to her successor. Zoom named Michelle Chang as CFO effective Oct. 7.

“Kelly’s impressive track record as a strong leader and strategic thinker, combined with her proven expertise in scaling enterprise companies, make her the perfect addition to our leadership bench,” Cliff Obrecht, Canva’s co-founder and chief operations officer, said in the statement.

Steckelberg was Zoom’s CFO when the video communications company went public in 2019. The company has experienced a roller coaster of attention since then as usage exploded during the pandemic and sales surged. Since then, revenue growth plunged to single digits and the shares, which hit a high of $568.34 in October 2020, have dropped to $81.14 at Friday’s close.

Canva said in the statement that it has hit 220 million monthly active users and recorded $2.5 billion in annualized revenue. The company in July purchased an image-generation startup as part of its push into artificial intelligence tools. 

The Information earlier reported Steckelberg’s appointment.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.