Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The Biden Administration is asking AI companies to help stop nonconsensual AI content, homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall opens up about her job in a rare interview, and Canva is wooing its next generation of enterprise customers. Have a restful weekend!
– Designed for success. Canva cofounder and CEO Melanie Perkins was in Los Angeles yesterday for Canva’s first big annual event to be held in the U.S. The new location for the Sydney-based company is symbolic. Canva reached 185 million monthly users by first targeting individuals looking for an easier way to design. The company is now aiming to reach C-suite executives. “It’s great to be able to be in their backyard,” Perkins told me before yesterday’s event.
Canva, now valued at $26 billion with $2.3 billion in annual revenue, is doubling down on its suite of enterprise products. It’s an evolution I covered in my 2022 profile of Perkins, who cofounded Canva more than a decade ago as an easier way for people to design, from posters to social media graphics. Servicing the needs of Coins2Day 500 corporations enables Canva to keep growing and make more money atop its freemium model.
Since offering its first enterprise products in 2019, the company has learned more about the day-to-day needs of CIOs and other execs. In 2022, Canva’s focus was on the launch of products to compete with Google Docs and Microsoft PowerPoint; now the product changes include features like starring certain assets for easy access across an organization, direct publishing to Meta and Amazon, and more technical tools like “auto-provisioning with SCIM.” Its enterprise customers today include Workday, Expedia, and FedEx. Perkins is eager to share stories about how much time Canva has saved those businesses; at Workday, it was 33,000 hours, she says.
Perkins was joined onstage yesterday by Disney CEO Bob Iger, a Canva investor. Iger has spoken before about being inspired by Canva as a way to “unlock” creativity—part of the Disney ethos—but Disney is also known for its stringent brand guidelines, something Canva’s new products aim to help companies stick to as more staffers make visual content. “You can be as locked down with a brand template as you want, or as unlocked as you want,” she says. “There’s the protection side and the unlocking side.”
Canva, right now, is locked down in a different sense. Its IPO has been eagerly anticipated for a few years, but the company has chosen to stay private and instead offered liquidity to some employees and investors. “Being private enables us to continue to flesh out exactly who we are and what we’re doing,” Perkins told me, “and make that really apparent to the world.”
The Broadsheet is off Monday, May. 27 for Memorial Day. We’ll be back in your inboxes Tuesday, May 28.
Emma Hinchliffe
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The Broadsheet is Coins2Day’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Stop at the source. The Biden Administration is asking AI companies to voluntarily cooperate with rules that make it harder for users to create, distribute, or monetize non consensual AI images like sexually explicit deepfakes. Arati Prabhakar, the director of the Office of Science and Technology at the White House, is leading the initiative. Time
- AI advisors. Meta on Wednesday announced an AI advisory council that is made up entirely of white men. The group will offer “insights and recommendations on technological advancements, innovation and strategic growth opportunities” as the tech giant seeks to reinvigorate its AI push. TechCrunch
- Under the radar. In a new interview, often elusive Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall opens up about defending the U.S. Against terrorism and the sacrifices she’s made for her job. She says she didn't hesitate to take the role because “it feels to me like it's the right use of this life.” People
- Shopaholic’s dream. China’s Xiaohongshu app is attracting a global audience of young, wealthy women and a community of side hustlers with its live shopping and Instagram-like features. One Hong Kong actress turned saleswoman earned 100 million yuan ($13.8 million) in a single livestream on the platform. The company, cofounded by Miranda Qu Fang, posted $500 million in profit last year. Bloomberg
- Help wanted. Ukrainian women are funneling into the country’s blue collar industries as the government expands its drafts amid its conflict with Russia. Women were banned from working in industries like mining and construction before the war, but some now say they are preparing to stay in their jobs to replace men who are killed or injured in war. Wall Street Journal
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Vote Run Lead named Lulete Mola and Jilian Hanlon to its board. Dupont CFO Lori Koch will become the CEO of a smaller version of the company after it splits in three.
ON MY RADAR
The D.I.Y. Empire of Kristin Juszczyk New York Times
Cassie Ventura breaks her silence on 2016 video that showed her being physically assaulted by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs CNN
Faux ScarJo and the descent of the AI vultures The New Yorker
PARTING WORDS
“I’ve been tap-dancing for the patriarchy for a good while. My knees are tired, but fish oil helps.”
— Comedian and actress Michelle Buteau on no longer having to be the "happy clown" after scoring a long-term partnership with Netflix
