Former Robert Half executive joins Upwork as senior vice president of marketing
Upwork ($UPWK), the largest freelancing website, announced that Lars Asbjornsen has joined the company as senior vice president of marketing. Asbjornsen spent the last 17 years honing his expertise in marketing, digital service development and global candidate sourcing as an executive at global staffing firm Robert Half. In addition to welcoming Asbjornsen to Upwork, the company also announced the promotion of Hayden Brown from senior vice president of product and design to chief marketing and product officer. In this expanded role, she will work closely with Asbjornsen to drive product innovation in lockstep with the company’s marketing efforts.
“Throughout my career, I’ve focused on developing strategies and programs to address the service and revenue opportunities associated with a rapidly changing workforce and evolving customer needs,” said Lars Asbjornsen.
“Upwork is on a mission to positively impact the future of work as we help businesses grow while creating more economic opportunities so people have better lives. We can’t accomplish these bold goals without extraordinary talent in place,” said Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork. “Lars is an ideal fit for Upwork as we move forward, and Hayden has proven herself to be invaluable to driving our efforts ahead. Their teams are now well-positioned to showcase our vision and what sets Upwork apart and deliver on our customers’ needs.”
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During Asbjornsen’s time at Robert Half, he pioneered and led the early development of the company’s online presence, digital marketing and demand generation programs in addition to bearing responsibility for all major online candidate sourcing efforts and partnerships. Asbjornsen also introduced several “industry firsts” in terms of creating novel solutions with global partners, and as a core member of Robert Half’s business transformation team, his focus and leadership skills were instrumental in building and launching the company’s platform-based digital service offerings. Prior to joining Robert Half, Asbjornsen worked with a number of companies, including Viant, e-Merchant Group and ContextVision, developing their strategies and go-to-market programs.
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“Throughout my career, I’ve focused on developing strategies and programs to address the service and revenue opportunities associated with a rapidly changing workforce and evolving customer needs,” said Asbjornsen. “I am thrilled to join Upwork to continue extending the company’s marketing capabilities, particularly in terms of attracting and converting businesses into Upwork customers as they discover bigger and more programmatic talent solutions for their workforce and project needs.”
In their respective appointments, both Asbjornsen’s and Brown’s roles come at a time when Upwork has been repeatedly recognized for its strong leadership. CEO Stephane Kasriel was recently named a finalist for the prestigious EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award while Chief Business Affairs and Legal Officer Brian Levey was named to the newly formed Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Upwork also recently welcomed Adam Ozimek, a former senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, as its new chief economist.
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