Guest
Rory Dolan
Chief Marketing Officer, Canva
A career spanning banking, a decade and a half in agencies and platform-side marketing science leadership, now Chief Marketing Officer at Canva, Dolan argues creativity is the multiplier and effectiveness the real prize.
About
Rory Dolan is Chief Marketing Officer at Canva, the design and visual communication platform. He is known for sitting at the intersection of marketing science and creativity, and for arguing that effectiveness, not efficiency, is the advantage that matters most in the AI era.
Dolan began his career in banking before deciding he wanted a more creative environment, moving across just as programmatic and the digitisation of media and advertising took hold. He spent the best part of a decade and a half in agencies, running media planning, buying and creative teams, building early machine learning and data science teams for Group M, and setting up a consultancy for young brands that worked on media, creative and product optimisation, even modelling the impact of climate change on their businesses.
He then went platform side, helping set up the marketing science team across APAC and owning that function across Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, before leading creative effectiveness across the Middle East and APAC region. Shortly before leaving he moved into a head of customer solutions role, responsible for the overall technical product and running sales, creative, product and technical sales teams. He is now Chief Marketing Officer at Canva, though by his own account his background is a marketing scientist first and an aspiring or failed creative second.
Career15 years
- 2026 to now Canva CMO, International
- 2026 to now Canva Head of Marketing Strategy
- 2025 to 2026 Canva Data Science and Marketing
- 2025 TikTok Head of Customer Solutions
Show earlier roles: TikTok, MediaCom Australia, Mindshare, Pyx Financial, Starcom MediaVest Group, Merchant Capital Ltd
- 2021 to 2025 TikTok Head of Marketing Science, AUNZ, Japan and Korea
- 2019 to 2021 MediaCom Australia Head of Data Planning & Advanced Analytics
- 2018 to 2019 MediaCom Australia Group Director, Advanced Analytics and Strategy
- 2017 MediaCom Australia Director, Business Science
- 2015 to 2016 MediaCom Australia Digital Manager
- 2014 to 2015 Mindshare Digital Account Director
- 2013 to 2014 Pyx Financial Consultant (Contract)
- 2012 to 2013 Starcom MediaVest Group Digital Account Manager
- 2011 to 2012 Merchant Capital Ltd Senior Marketing Executive
How Rory thinks3 convictions
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Creativity is the multiplier
Dolan's years inside the data led him to the same place every time: creativity is the variable that moves outcomes. He argues that strong, data-led planning only pays off when paired with real creativity, and that the mechanics of media should disappear so the creative can do the work. For Dolan the creative is the product, and everything else is delivery.
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Humanity tells the best stories
As the creator model matures, Dolan believes brands should stop being so dogmatic about where stories come from. He makes the case that a company's own people, who live and breathe the brand, are often its most convincing storytellers. The move he predicts is a democratization of the individual inside companies, with budget flowing to wherever the story can be told best.
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AI should augment, not replace
Dolan frames AI through human insight: the technology should solve blockers like the blank page and then get out of the way. Citing the Betty Crocker egg, he argues people care about what they help create, so removing them entirely strips out the value. His test for a good AI tool is whether it leaves people feeling they still built the thing.