The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt)

The Strategy Behind Canva’s B2B Growth with Emma Robinson and Kristine Segrist

Aug 28, 2025

Emma Robinson, Head of B2B Marketing at Canva, and Kristine Segrist, VP of Consumer Marketing, share insights into Canva's success. They explore how Canva turns free users into enterprise clients by utilizing product signals. The importance of balancing brand-building with measurable ROI features prominently, alongside their innovative 'Love Your Work' campaign. They discuss leveraging data science for creative marketing strategies while maintaining an approachable brand identity, highlighting how their flat organizational structure fosters collaboration and drives growth across diverse audiences.

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INSIGHT

Blur The B2B/B2C Divide

Canva rejects strict B2B/B2C boundaries and designs marketing for people moving across contexts.
Emma Robinson and Kristine Segrist emphasize unified channels and shared planning to keep messaging consistent.

ADVICE

Organize Around Channels And Outcomes

Create centers of excellence for channels and align them to business-unit outcomes to scale expertise.
Use a heavily matrixed model so channel specialists support multiple audience-focused teams.

INSIGHT

AI Accelerates Creative Iteration

AI and automation accelerate testing and let teams rapidly surface high-performing creatives and messages.
Emma Robinson says AI helps scale performance marketing while teams rally around top assets.

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#277 Growth | Dave is joined by Emma Robinson, Head of B2B Marketing at Canva, and Kristine Segrist, VP of Consumer Marketing at Canva. Together, Emma and Kristine lead the teams driving Canva’s growth across both enterprise and consumer audiences, helping the company scale into a platform now used by over 95% of the Fortune 500.

Dave, Emma, and Kristine cover:

How Canva balances brand-building with pipeline accountability, and why they view brand investment as long-term growth.
The playbook Canva uses to turn bottom-up adoption into enterprise deals, including how product signals guide upsell and expansion.
How their team structure, data science investments, and creative bets (like the Love Your Work campaign) work together to scale B2B marketing without losing Canva’s approachable brand identity.

This episode offers a practical look at how one of the world’s most recognizable platforms approaches B2B growth.

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro
(03:09) - – Canva’s marketing org structure
(06:09) - – Blurring B2B and B2C
(11:09) - – How Canva measures marketing impact
(16:09) - – Turning free users into enterprise deals
(21:09) - – Data science’s role in marketing
(24:09) - – Balancing brand bets with ROI
(30:54) - – Inside the “Love Your Work” campaign
(37:54) - – How Canva executes large campaigns
(41:54) - – Building enterprise credibility and trust
(44:54) - – FedEx case study on brand governance
(48:54) - – Lessons from Google and Meta
(52:54) - – Why creativity is a marketing superpower
(54:54) - – Closing thoughts

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