Rob Giglio on Platforms & Ecosystems at Canva

This week, Avanish sits down with Rob Giglio, Chief Customer Officer at Canva, to explore how a consumer brand mindset—honed across stints at Procter & Gamble, Gap, Adobe, DocuSign, and HubSpot—translates into building a global platform used by 260 million monthly active users. 

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Rob shares how Canva is making the deliberate shift from product-led growth to enterprise sales, why the company's "two-step mission" keeps commercial ambition grounded in purpose, and how its ecosystem strategy is built around being the most pluggable platform in the market. Throughout the conversation, Avanish and Rob unpack the cupcake framework for product architecture, what it really means to be a win-win-win partner ecosystem, and why Canva's approach to AI is rooted in solving real customer problems—not chasing the trend.

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Together, they discuss:

• Canva's two-step mission — grow as large as possible in order to do as much good as possible, including giving away over $1 billion in software annually and serving 100+ million students worldwide
• The cupcake framework for platform architecture — the "cake" is the core product for everyone; "frosting and sprinkles" are the enterprise-specific features, keeping the product intuitive across all customer segments
• From PLG to enterprise — how Canva is making the shift from buyer-led growth to a seller-led motion, and why that requires sales, enterprise marketing, and a deliberate partner ecosystem
• Building the "most pluggable platform" — Canva's ecosystem philosophy: agency partners, integration partners (including OpenAI and Anthropic/Claude), and strategic partners like Deloitte and EY each play distinct, purpose-built roles
• ‍AI as infrastructure, not a feature — with 28 billion AI interactions in the product, Rob explains why Canva thinks of itself as an AI platform that does great design, and how new features like Magic Layers were built by starting with the customer problem, not the technology

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