Our Leaders

Hayden Brown is president and CEO of Upwork. Before being named CEO in January 2020, Hayden held leadership roles at Upwork in both product and marketing.

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Having been at Upwork since 2011, she is known for bold leadership and her passion for the company’s mission to create economic opportunities so that people live better lives. That passion stems from her childhood years spent living in Kathmandu, Nepal, and she’s committed to building a sustainable, high-performing business that delivers on that mission in ever-bigger ways.

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Prior to becoming CEO, Hayden was Upwork’s chief marketing and product officer. In this role, she led the expansion of Upwork’s offerings to attract and serve sophisticated business buyers who could significantly benefit from Upwork’s global pool of talent.

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Before joining Upwork, Hayden led corporate development for LivePerson and held strategy and corporate development roles at Microsoft. She began her career as an analyst at McKinsey and Company after earning an AB in Politics from Princeton University. She has been named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ "40 Under 40" and "Global Power 150—Women in Staffing." Hayden is married with two children.

Brian Levey oversees Upwork's legal, regulatory and government affairs functions globally and engages stakeholders to promote Upwork’s reputation through corporate affairs initiatives.

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Brian has more than 15 years of legal experience focused on the intersection of the internet and technology. Prior to joining Upwork, Brian served in a global leadership role at eBay Inc. for more than a decade, where he began as eBay's first corporate attorney and most recently served as its Deputy General Counsel. Before joining eBay, Brian served as VP, Legal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and as a corporate attorney at Latham & Watkins. In 2017, Brian was named one of the world’s Top 20 General Counsels by The Financial Times.

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Brian holds a law degree from Stanford Law School, where he was an Associate Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and a bachelor’s degree in economics, with honors and distinction, from Stanford University.

Eric Gilpin is Chief Sales Officer at Upwork, where he oversees the company’s Enterprise offering and 400+ global customer-facing team members, including Enterprise sales, sales operations, solutions design and delivery, account management, product success and talent solutions.

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Prior to joining Upwork, he held several executive sales leadership roles at CareerBuilder. In 2017 and 2018, he was recognized as one of the industry's top "40 Under 40" by SIA. He was also included in the 2020 "Top 100 Global Sales Leaders" list by The Modern Sale. 

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Eric holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business.

Melissa Waters is Chief Marketing Officer of Upwork, where she oversees Upwork’s global marketing team. With more than 15 years of experience in high-growth companies, Melissa drives brand and product awareness as well as consumer engagement for the world’s work marketplace.

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Prior to joining Upwork at the start of 2022, Melissa was Global VP of Marketing at Meta-owned platform, Instagram, where she led brand and product marketing for the company’s billions of users. Before Meta, Melissa held senior marketing leadership roles at Hims & Hers, Lyft, and Pandora.

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Melissa holds an MBA from Babson College and a BA with honors in public relations and journalism from the University of Houston.

Dave Bottoms leads Upwork's Marketplace organization, a global team responsible for the core Talent Marketplace, search & discovery, ads & monetization, core mobile experiences, as well as new product innovation and analytics.

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Dave brings more than 20 years of experience in Silicon Valley to Upwork. He joined the company in 2022 from Meta, where he led the Ads Manager Platform and Experiences team responsible for the flagship enterprise product used by millions of small businesses and global advertisers to drive valuable business outcomes across Facebook and Instagram. Prior to Meta, Dave led the self-service customer growth team at Dropbox, and multiple teams at Yahoo!.

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Dave holds a BA in English literature from Denison University.

Brandon Savage leads Upwork's Customer Experience & Trust organization, a globally distributed team that spans a wide range of product management, analytics, policy and operations functions.

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Brandon joined Upwork in 2021 with more than 15 years of combined experience in product management, customer success and operations leadership roles at high-growth technology companies. Brandon holds multiple patents for his work in technology during this time. Prior to Upwork, Brandon was Global Vice President of Customer Support and Scaled Education at Box, overseeing scaled and paid service offerings to support the health and growth of all Box customers, from individuals to large enterprises.

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Brandon holds an MBA with a focus on media and technology from New York University.