From Canva CFO to Long-Term Builder: Damien Singh’s Next Act
When people talk about startups, they usually start with the bold headlines. Fundraising rounds get the most attention, valuations are passed around like party tricks, and everyone wants to know who’s moving the fastest. There’s one question that typically gets lost in the conversation: what actually helps an organization hold together once the speed picks up? Damien Singh has spent much of his career answering that riddle.
After eight years helping scale Canva, he’s more interested in businesses built for endurance. Singh focuses on what comes after learning how a company grows from a small operation into something much larger, and which parts of the experience are still useful when the logo on the door changes.
A Career Built Through Pivots
Singh’s path avoided the polished version of startup mythology. He dropped out of university after six months and spent half a year installing satellite TV dishes before stopping to ask himself, “What are you doing with your life?”
From there, he moved into accountancy, qualified as a chartered accountant in four years, and built a career in auditing before deciding that the usual partnership route wasn’t the future he wanted.
That decision clearly shaped his next chapter. He left Bristol for Sydney, took pay cuts that reflected risk, and stepped into startup work because building businesses felt more direct and grounded. When his early startup didn’t gain traction, Canva became his next stop.
What Eight Years Inside Hypergrowth Can Teach
Singh served as Canva’s CFO from 2016 to 2024. This was during a stretch when revenue grew from roughly $10 million USD to over $2 billion. The headcount rose from around 50 people to more than 4,000 globally. He also led a $1 billion-plus capital raise at a $26 billion valuation in 2024.
Growth at that pace tends to mean more than bigger teams and larger financing. It also translates to building systems that survive pressure, making disciplined financial decisions, and adapting the company as it becomes far larger than its early form.
Beyond finance, Singh’s experience focuses on operations, structure, and the long work of helping something scale without leaning into sloppy tactics.
Why His Focus Now Feels Different
What Singh is doing now carries a noticeably different tone from typical over-the-top founder culture. Singh is investing in and advising early-stage technology founders, particularly those working through fundraising, operating structure, and early scaling decisions. He also owns Gwalia United FC, where he sees women’s football as another place where long-term operating discipline can matter.
While some startups focus on short-term optics, Singh is primarily interested in organizations that can keep creating value over time. That idea comes up repeatedly in how he describes his work, where he enjoys helping build brands that endure. Specifically, he ensures these brands have enough financial and structural strength to last longer than the initial excitement around them.
The Person Behind the Title
There’s also a more personal layer underneath all of this. Singh’s childhood was unstable, and he has spoken about how that shaped his independence, self-reliance, and comfort with risk. Later in life, stepping away from Canva forced another kind of adjustment. This adjustment involved figuring out who he was without being “the CFO of Canva.”
That part may be why his current career approach feels a little steadier than the usual startup status quo. He’s already been through a chapter that many people would treat as the final destination. What seems to matter now is what can be built after that, and whether it lasts.
