Freelancer marketplace Upwork has appointed Melissa Waters as chief marketing officer.
Waters (LinkedIn profile) joins the California-based company from Meta, where she served as global vice president of marketing at Instagram. Prior to that, she held marketing positions at telehealth company Hims & Hers, Lyft and Pandora.
“It’s impossible to not be deeply inspired by the transformational moment we are in for the world of work,” said Upwork president and CEO Hayden Brown. “In 2022, our strategy remains laser-focused on continuing to innovate, evangelize, and scale the world’s work marketplace — the career platform for every skilled worker, and every business, regardless of employment type and geography.”
He added, “Melissa’s deep expertise in helping high-growth companies scale, establish new categories, and build world-class brands is key to increasing awareness of Upwork and capitalizing on our $1.3 trillion total addressable market opportunity. We couldn’t be more thrilled for her to join the team.”
Waters said, “This is an exciting time to be joining Upwork’s visionary leadership team. For the first time in decades, people are questioning what we call ‘work’ and how we do it. As the world’s work marketplace, Upwork is uniquely positioned to not only capitalize on this shift but shape what work looks like in the future. I look forward to helping take Upwork’s brand story to new heights.”
The new CMO appointment follows a raft of new VP hires announced by Upwork in December for its product & experience (PEX) and engineering organizations, in a bid to harness R&D momentum and accelerate development in 2022.
California-based Upwork describes itself as “the world’s largest work marketplace”, as measured by gross services volume. Globally, it competes with freelancer sites such as Freelancer, Fiverr and Dribbble.
