Global Chats
Provoke thinking, inspire action – join our free webinars with inspiring leaders and experts around the world.
Global Chats
Provoke thinking, inspire action – join our free webinars with inspiring leaders and experts around the world.
Thought-provoking sessions.
Inspiring guests
Movers and shakers from around the world share insights, best practices, and discuss challenges in leadership development.
Hot topics
Fresh and diverse perspectives on the issues that matter today in the world of leadership development.
Connection
Join like-minded leaders, practitioners, and experts from across the globe and gain inspiration from the wisdom of the crowd.
On the go inspiration
Maximise your engagement at an live session, or tune into the video and podcast recordings at your leisure.
Upcoming session.
CAITLIN GLEESON
Global Leadership Development Lead, Canva
About Caitlin
Caitlin Gleeson is the Global Leadership Development Lead at Canva. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology, organisational development, and transformation, with a focus on what it takes to unlock peak performance within complex systems. She is driven by a passion for taking the latest innovative approaches to enable leaders and teams to shift mindsets and drive tangible organizational impact.
Caitlin has led end-to-end organizational and transformation initiatives partnering with executives across some of the largest organisations across the globe, spanning industries across the private, government, and NFP sectors. At Canva, her work covers the full spectrum of organisational effectiveness: shaping the executive strategy, leadership, culture, and capability of one of the world’s most complex, fast-scaling companies.
About Canva
Canva is a global visual communication platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design. Since launching in 2O13, it has grown from an Australian startup into a global community of over 2OO million monthly users across 19O countries.
The company operates on a Two-Step Plan: first, to build one of the world’s most valuable companies, and second, to use that growth to do the most good. This philosophy is backed by a human-centric culture where a team of over 5,OOO Canvanauts focuses on achieving ‘crazy big goals’ while maintaining a deep commitment to being a force for good in the world.
The Canva leadership OS
How Canva builds a high-performance culture that scales.
Scaling a company to 5,OOO people usually forces a choice: keep the startup culture but lose control, or add corporate layers and lose the speed. Canva chose a third path. They developed a leadership operating system designed to unlock and scale high performance, while keeping their values at the core.Â
This chat with Caitlin Gleeson, Global Leadership Development Lead at Canva, is a look under the hood of that system. Caitlin works at the intersection of organizational transformation and rapid-scale tech, using cutting-edge approaches to shift mindsets and systems at scale. We’re digging into how Canva has moved beyond the traditional manager role to a model where the ‘interface’ for leadership is coaching – inspired by the founders’ own journey and scaled for everyone.
The conversation:
- The coaching interface: A look at shifting from top-down management to a focus on enabling and empowerment, and how this works in a practical, day-to-day sense.
- Just-in-time development – Insights into how an AI-native company embeds support directly into the flow of work, accelerating growth and performance for both the individual and the organization.
- The Learning Zone – How Canva uses psychological safety to protect high-impact performance, while simultaneously supercharging employee growth.Â
This session is a chance to look at how a modern, adaptive leadership culture stays human while going global.
12 May 3:OOPM PDT | 5:OO PM CDT | 6:OOPM EDT
13 May 8:OO AM AEST | 1O:OO AM NZST
Past episodes.
Season 4 (2O26)
SEAN WESTCOTT
Leadership coach and mentor
GRIFF DAVENPORT, FAIA
Managing Principal Emeritus and Chair of Board of Directors, DLR Group
Season 3 (2O25)
EHSAN VAGHIFI
CEO, Toku Inc.
CARL SANDERS EDWARDS
Founder and CEO, Adeption
SAM FERNANDO
Learning and Leadership Leader, Aurecon
ISIS FABIAN
Neurodiversity Educator and Advocate
SUZANNE COONAN
Head of Executive Talent & Succession, Salesforce
LAYSHA WARD
Author, Board Member, C-Suite Leader, Speaker
Season 2 (2O24)
CARL SANDERS EDWARDS
Founder and CEO, Adeption
DAVID HYATT
People Strategist, Executive Coach, Facilitator
MICHAEL HENDERSON
Corporate Anthropologist
SOPHIA KHAN
Global Business Transformation Executive
MELISSA CRAWFORD
Futurist, Founder of Tech with Heart
KIM BALLINGER
CEO of AsureQuality
NICOLE KRAUSE
Store Director Development at Target
ANDREW AND SAM FROGGATT
Lead the Way
Season 1 (2O23)
DAN LAKE
Lead Facilitator, Adeption
NICK PETRIE
Leadership Development Consultant, Adeption Partner
JAN RYBECK, MCC
Leadership Development Consultant, Adeption Partner
ERIN SWARTOUT
Perspective from role as Global Head of Talent & DEI, Masco Corporation
CARL SANDERS EDWARDS
Founder and CEO, Adeption
akasha
phD, PCC, Cultivating Leadership
SIMON CURRAN
Co-founder and CEO, Bastion Shine
LAYNE GREER
Director of People Development, Google
MICHAEL CAMPBELL
Director of Learning Experiences, Workday
Got questions? Get in touch hello@adeption.io
Meet the minds behind the conversation.
At the heart of every Adeption Global Chat are dynamic and curious hosts from our own team of experts. We’ve brought together a collective of passionate leaders, coaches, designers and facilitators to guide these conversations. Drawing on their extensive experience in our industry, our hosting team – Mark, Corey, Jamie, Dan, Renee, Tim, and Lettie – doesn’t just ask questions; they dig deeper, challenge perspectives, and create a space for authentic dialogue. You can be sure that whoever is hosting, you’re in for an engaging session that uncovers fresh insights and inspires new ways of thinking.