Who is Esther Friend, VP of Revenue Operations at Udemy?

Recently appointed Vice President of Revenue Operations at Udemy, Esther Friend is a distinguished revenue operations leader recognized as one of Pavilion's Top 50 Revenue Leaders to Watch in 2025. She brings extensive experience in sales operations, business transformation, and go-to-market strategy optimization.

Prior to Udemy, Friend served as VP of Sales Efficiency and Transformation at Five9, where she scaled go-to-market operations and optimized sales workflows. She held several senior leadership positions at ANGI Homeservices, including SVP of Enterprise Solutions and VP of Sales Operations, where she led a 65-person team and managed critical Salesforce implementations. Her earlier experience includes executive roles at hc1 and ChaCha, where she managed a community of 120,000 virtual workers.

Friend holds a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Spanish from Hanover College and completed studies at Universidad de Sevilla, demonstrating her international academic background.

She is recognized as a thought leader in Revenue Operations, Sales Enablement, and Business Transformation, earning distinctions such as Seismic's Top 50 in Enablement and Five9's President's Club Circle of Excellence Leadership Award. Her expertise spans B2B, B2B2C, CRM, Sales tools, and SaaS, with particular strength in AI and automation implementation.