Education Growth Lead - MENAP

About the Role

• As the Education Growth Lead for MENAP, you ll own the strategy and execution for how Canva activates and grows within schools and universities across the region.
• This isn t a sales role.
• Your focus is what happens after: ensuring that the institutions Canva enters genuinely embed it, use it, and expand their adoption on it over time.
• You ll build the relationships with education ministries, school networks, and university bodies that create institutional-level traction.
• You ll design and deliver programs, like University Champions and Canva for Campus, that turn early access into active, sticky usage.
• And you ll work cross-functionally with EDU product management, product marketing, engineering, and analytics to make sure the platform and GTM motion are actually working for education users in this region.
• While the initial focus is GCC, you re building the playbook for all of MENAP.
• The patterns you establish here will influence how Canva approaches education growth across the broader region for years to come.
• What you ll do
• Develop and own the MENAP Education Growth strategy across school leadership and university sectors, starting with GCC and expanding across the broader MENAP region.
• Build and sustain partnerships with education ministries, school networks, regional education authorities, university bodies, and student organisations including crafting formal MoUs and government partnership agreements.
• Design and deliver GTM strategies for flagship education programs including University Champions and Canva for Campus, from concept through to in-market execution.
• Coordinate cross-functional work with EDU product managers, product marketing, engineering, and analytics teams to ensure the product and GTM motion reflect the needs of MENAP education users.
• Collaborate with MENAP Sales and Community teams to share insights from schools and universities, align on event presence and messaging, and drive adoption at scale through complementary outreach.
• Represent Canva at regional education events, conferences, and partner briefings, building Canva s profile as a leading education technology partner in MENAP.
• Identify and develop strategic partnerships with government education initiatives and digital transformation programmes, including crafting the partnership frameworks and MoUs that underpin them.
• What we're looking for
• As a regional lead role, you re someone who can own a complex, cross-functional challenge and drive it forward with both strategic clarity and hands-on execution.
• You re comfortable navigating ambiguity education ecosystems in MENAP are diverse, often deeply relationship-driven, and require patience alongside pace.
• You likely bring experience in EdTech, policy, higher education, or public sector strategy, and you know how to work within institutional contexts without losing momentum.
• You re a strong relationship builder who can hold meaningful conversations with senior education leaders, ministry officials, and student communities alike.
• You bring sharp program management skills, you can design a GTM motion and actually ship it, and you re genuinely curious about how education works across different markets and cultures in this region.
• Critically, you understand what this role is and isn t.
• You re not here to close deals as that lies with our Education Sales.
• You re here to make those deals matter: to activate, build stickiness, and create genuine long-term impact in the institutions Canva enters.
• What you ll Learn and Build
• Deep expertise in education market development across MENAP one of the most dynamic and culturally diverse regional education landscapes in the world.
• First-hand experience building institutional partnerships and government relations at a high-growth global technology company.
• Cross-functional leadership skills, working across product, marketing, sales, and community to drive outcomes you influence but don t directly own.
• The opportunity to build Canva s MENAP education activation playbook from the ground up a function with genuine regional and global visibility.