Episode
Canva CMO on the marketing strategies that built Australia’s largest private company - Zach Kitschke
- Podcast
- Uncensored CMO
- Published
- Mar 11, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2433
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://ucmo.transistor.fm/249
Actions
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Summary
Zach Kitschke joined Canva as employee number five. Today, the company serves hundreds of millions of users worldwide. In this episode, Zach shares the inside story of Canva’s growth, from the scrappy early marketing that put the company on the map to scaling a brand and product used across the world. We discuss the power of Canva’s freemium model, their bold “Make the Logo Bigger” campaign, and how the company approaches both brand and B2B marketing. Zach also explains how Canva scaled from a team of five to thousands of employees, the leadership lessons he learned from the founders, and how AI is shaping the next chapter for the business. Sign up to our live event, The Calling, on April 21st here: https://event.uncensoredcmo.com/events/uncensoredcmo/2044861 Subscribe to our newsletter, The One Thing: https://newsletter.uncensoredcmo.com/ Listen to our new podcast, Uncensored Renegades: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/uncensored-renegades/id1868870960 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7qnkqq0XSpgif9A5ZNgSpX?si=f181c3a0e9af480c Timestamps 00:00 - Start 00:53 - Being employee #5 at Canva 01:46 - The marketing that got Canva noticed at the start 03:50 - How big is Canva? 04:45 - The challenges growing Canva into a unicorn 07:26 - What makes good design according to Canva 09:24 - The freemium business model 11:46 - Why the Canva founders are giving away 30% of their wealth 13:21 - Do Canva invest more in product or brand? 14:41 - Canva’s make the logo bigger campaign 16:33 - How Canva approaches B2B marketing 18:59 - The AI tools that are driving Canva forward 22:19 - The most innovative things Zach has done as Canva CMO 24:58 - Zach’s tips for delivering a keynote 26:59 - Being a CMO scaling from 5 to 5000 employees 29:52 - How to run multiple…