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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.
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.
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.
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.
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Brian Levey oversees Upwork's legal, regulatory and government affairs functions globally and engages stakeholders to promote Upwork’s reputation through corporate affairs initiatives.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Melissa holds an MBA from Babson College and a BA with honors in public relations and journalism from the University of Houston.
Erica Gessert is Chief Financial Officer at Upwork, where she oversees Upwork’s global finance team and operations.
Erica has more than 20 years of finance, operations, analytics and investor relations experience supporting technology companies. Prior to joining Upwork, Erica served in a number of senior executive finance roles for PayPal, most recently Chief Transformation Officer, reporting to the CEO. Previously, Erica held finance and investor relations leadership positions at Sprint Corporation and Virgin Mobile USA.
Erica studied economics and philosophy at Reed College.
As Chief People Officer at Upwork, Sunita is responsible for driving innovation in the company's workforce strategy and designing a world-class team member experience to support both its corporate employees and independent professionals from around the world that are part of the Upwork team.
Prior to joining Upwork, Sunita previously served as vice president, people at Convoy reporting to the CEO, and held several HR and people leadership positions at eBay and Airbnb, including head of people for Airbnb’s Homes Business division.
Sunita holds M.B.As in Human Resource Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Symbiosis International University and a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from BITS, Pilani, India.
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.
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!.
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.
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.
Brandon holds an MBA with a focus on media and technology from New York University.
Mohit Kumar is currently General Manager of Payments at Upwork, where he leads Upwork's payments, work management, and tax solutions for both talent and clients.
Before joining Upwork, Mohit was Senior Director of Product Management at eBay where he led a team responsible for building core products that form the backbone of commerce at eBay, including order management, billing, loyalty, and tax. Mohit also spearheaded eBay's next-generation global payments offering, which intermediates multi-billion dollar payment volumes. Prior to its acquisition by eBay, Mohit held several product management leadership positions at Baazee.com.
Mohit holds a Bachelor of Engineering and a Master of Management Studies, Operations Management from Mumbai University.
Zoë Diamadi is the General Manager of Enterprise at Upwork, where she oversees Upwork’s global Enterprise and Managed Services organizations.
Zoë brings over 20 years of tech experience to Upwork. This includes close to a decade at LinkedIn, spending six years as GM of LinkedIn Elevate building the leading employee advocacy solution for enterprises, as well as time spent in various senior leadership roles helping scale LinkedIn’s three enterprise business lines. She is also an operating advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she guides portfolio companies on topics relating to revenue growth and efficient scaling. Previously, she held leadership positions in McKinsey’s North America high tech practice.
Zoë received a Ph.D. in computer science from Yale University in 2004. Her work was awarded ACM’s 2020 Dijkstra Prize for its enduring impact in the field of distributed computing.
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