Women to Watch 2022: Melissa Chen, Uber

Melissa Chen

Head of marketing 
Uber
Taiwan

Melissa Chen joined Uber four years ago as senior marketing manager of Uber Eats and was promoted to Uber's head of marketing in 2021. Over the past few years, she has managed to secure millions of dollars of investment, build the local team from scratch, and seize opportunities to innovate.

When Chen had her interview with the brand, she aspired to get Din Tai Fung on Uber Eats to show consumers that they could deliver top-notch food with high standards. Six months later, pitching to Din Tai Fung's CEO, Chen and her team led the restaurant chain to debut on Uber Eats and later became one of Uber's most valuable exclusive partners on the platform.

Under Chen’s leadership, Uber leads delivery market share with membership campaigns and maintains best-in-class customer loyalty and retention. In Taiwan, 'Tonight, I’ll be eating…' became the second-highest buzz-worthy phrase on social media in 2020. It also became the first market for Uber to create its very first mass media grocery campaign in 2021, followed by collaborations with top local supermarket chain PX Mart the next year. Monthly active grocery shoppers grew more than 50% from December 2021 to date, and grocery awareness grew by over 40%.

Armed with Chen’s extensive behavioural data-driven strategy, Uber adopted similar approaches in launching full-funnel integrated campaigns in other markets. In February 2022, Chen piloted a global membership-first retail programme that achieved an increase of over 25% monthly active members. Later, in August, she launched the ‘Delivery Like That’ platform brand campaign across APAC while introducing local product differentiation campaigns and piloting new approaches to marketing deliveries beyond restaurants. 

As a culture lead at Uber, Chen has spearheaded another global initiative, ‘Manager Academy’, and she is committed to developing critical skills for future leaders. On this, Chen draws from a career spanning over 15 years across consumer packaged goods, medical, and tech brands. From Unilever to Johnson & Johnson, she’s worked to improve the local presence of global brands such as Dove, Neutrogena, Johnson’s, Aveeno and Listerine.