Long-time Canva CFO quietly leaves as Australian unicorn moves closer to IPO

Canva’s Chief Financial Officer Damien Singh quietly left his role last week after eight years with the company. In a fresh step towards its long-speculated initial public offering (IPO), the Australian unicorn is now seeking a finance lead with publicly listed company experience.

According to a source close to the matter, Singh announced his departure suddenly on February 5 — a move that was surprising for some staff. The long-term employee’s Slack access was reportedly deactivated the same day.

It appears this move was part of a larger succession plan that had been in the works with the leadership team since last year.

Canva is looking for a CFO with publicly listed company experience

SmartCompany understands that transition discussions had been taking place for a number of months in the lead-up to Canva’s secondary transaction, and that both parties agreed the business needed a finance lead with experience in scaling companies globally.

“As we move towards the vision of Finance 2.0, I’ve been working closely with the Finance Leads over the past few months as we explore what’s needed for the next phase of our journey as a company. As part of this, I also wanted to share that today marks my last day at Canva,” Singh said in an email seen by SmartCompany.

“… we’re now at a pivotal point going into our next decade where we now need to build on our foundations to operate as a truly public ready company.”

Singh went onto say that Canva is actively recruiting a new permanent CFO “with deep public company experience at a global scale for our next chapter of growth”.

Canva confirmed that the finance leadership team will be stepping up to lead the finance arm of the business in the interim, with support from its Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Development, Todd Carpenter.

“Damien has played an instrumental role in our journey and we appreciate the foundations he’s built to achieve the success we’ve had to date. As we now move into the next chapter, we mutually agreed now is the right time to bring in a CFO with a long track record of growing public companies at global scale,” a Canva spokesperson said to SmartCompany.

“Leading Canva’s Finance team has been a huge professional highlight and an honour. After nearly eight years, I’m leaving with the utmost confidence in the finance leadership team we’ve built and I know this next chapter will take Canva to even greater heights,” Singh said in an email to SmartCompany.

At the present time there is no further clarification on when Canva will go public. However, Singh and his team were reportedly closely involved in Canva’s sale over the past few months — including the securing of investor interest and opening the transaction to the Canva team before Singh’s departure.

The staff and investor share sale was confirmed in early January, with a reported US$1 billion ($1.47 billion) on the table at a US$26 billion ($38.5 billion) valuation. This will follow a $150 million share sale from long-term investor, Blackbird Ventures, back in August. These sales allow for investors and long-term staff to see gains during a tumultuous time for IPOs.

According to the 2023 State of Australian Startup Funding report, IPO activity fell 33% in 2022 compared to the previous year.

The seemingly sudden departure of Singh is said to have resulted in speculation among staff outside of company channels. While Canva doesn’t widely communicate departures — even those at a senior leadership level — to its 4,500 global employees, it’s understood that relevant teams were notified. Investors were also informed of the departure last week.