Shannon Wentworth
chief executive officer & founding partner
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Sweet connects all the dots of Shannon’s life, combining her passion for the environment and human rights with her love of travel and women. Obsessed with finding a way to make the economics of doing good in the world work, Shannon strives to create a successful and green business run by happy employees for blissed-out guests. It’s her favorite kind of situation—a win-win-win.
Working as director of promotions and editor in chief at Care2 with visionaries like Randy Paynter, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Timothy Brantley and Annie B. Bond showed her that it’s possible to create an uncompromising business dedicated to making a difference in the world. As vice president of marketing at Olivia and director of marketing at PlanetOut, Inc., Shannon sharpened her lesbian and gay marketing skills. Additionally, she has consulted with Anheuser-Busch, USMP, the Game Show Network, Suzanne Westenhoefer, and green builders CMW Architects, McCutcheon Construction and Live Oak Estates.
A bookworm at heart, Shannon earned her master’s degree in literature at California State University, Fresno (go Bulldogs), where she had the extreme pleasure of working with renowned lesbian historian and author Lillian Faderman on "Chloe Plus Olivia," an anthology of lesbian literature. Trouble sleeping? Ask her about her thesis on Katherine Philips.
Recently, Shannon completed her fifth AIDS Lifecycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In her spare time, Shannon enjoys sleeping, running, playing basketball, hiking with her dog, rock climbing and working to overcome her fear of swimming to compete in triathlons. She’s an enthusiastic supporter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California, the Galapagos Conservancy, the Humane Society, Sports for Kids, Sierra Mono Indian Museum, Save the Children, Human Rights Campaign and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. She serves on the board of the San Francisco LGBT Center. Shannon is the proud parent of Lexi, who is a freshman at Snow College in Utah.
Jen Rainin
founding partner
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Jen helms The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, a private family foundation
that funds inspiring and world changing advances in education, medical
research and the arts. One of her many projects with the Foundation is
a partnership with the San Francisco Film Society which supports Bay
Area filmmakers in the production of narrative features that
significantly explore human and civil rights, anti-discrimination,
gender issues, sexual identity and other urgent social justice issues
of our time.
Blending her philanthropic spirit, adventurous outlook and a desire to
build lesbian community and visibility all over the world, Jen
co-founded Sweet to offer amazing and meaningful vacations to
lesbians. Jen serves on Sweet’s Board of Directors and Board of
Advisors, where she guides the vision and development of the company.
Additionally, Jen is a generous supporter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Human Rights Campaign and Equality California.
Flavia Belli
Sales Manager
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Nothing brings Flavia more joy than matching you with the right vacation and the right room at a price that’s right for you. Heck, she’ll even match you with the perfect payment plan.
A seasoned travel sales professional, Flavia was senior sales consultant at Olivia for six years. She’s traveled on over 25 trips, ranging from large cruises and resorts to adventure and luxury vacations. She shines at training and mentoring new sales people to ensure customer satisfaction.
As an event planner with Zero Breast Cancer, Flavia helped raise vital funds for breast cancer research.
A woman who loves a challenge, Flavia spends her spare time at the gym, yoga studio or on her own adventures around the world. She’s traveled extensively in Central America and Europe. She earned her bachelor of science in marketing from the University of San Francisco.
Sweet is a perfect match for Flavia as she pairs her two big passions: Making a difference in the world and exploring it.
Jennifer Houston
Executive Vice President, Business Development
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Houston knows business development. She’s excited to leverage her business relationships to help Sweet find creative ways to offset the cost of its vacations through innovative business partnerships. Houston relishes the opportunity to hook the for-profit sector up with the non-profit sector. She also serves on Sweet’s Board of Advisors.
As the vice president of marketing for USMP, she’s responsible for the agency’s creative direction and growth opportunities. Houston served as account director at USMP from 2004-2006. In that position, she was responsible for the overall strategic direction and tactical activation planning within the Anheuser-Busch account, managing 600 events and 31 teams in 21 markets each week. Over two years, she was responsible for generating more than 12 million client impressions.
Before joining USMP, Houston worked as an account director for GMR Marketing in Milwaukee and Walnut Creek, Calif. Additionally, she worked as the director of programs for Olivia Cruises and Resorts in Oakland, Calif., and with MusicMatters, a field marketing and event production agency based in Minneapolis, implementing innovative marketing strategies for clients in the organic foods segment.
Houston began her career with Momentum IMC, the events and sponsorship unit of McCann-Erickson North America, as a senior tour manager, working on programs for Coca-Cola, Fresca (mmm) and Kmart.
A graduate of Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Mo., Houston competes in triathlons in her free time.
Francesca Bautista
Art Director
Francesca draws inspiration from her adopted city of Paris, where the Louvre, the Pompidou, and the big swirlie chandeliers and the macarons at La Duree add fuel to her creative fire. When she’s not designing a web site, corporate identity or national print campaign, Francesca can be found laying down fresh beats, hunting down 70s and 80s disco records in the bins of a vide-grenier or DJing a dance party.
As the Art Director & Senior Designer at Barking Dog Creative, Francesca worked with a diverse array of clients, like Bay Area Sound Studios, CMW Architects, Cypress Wealth Advisors, DiRosa Preserve, The Japan Society of Northern California, Live Oak Estates, Greenman Technologies, The San Francisco Antique District, Sushi Ran, Timothy Berry and Terri Jaffe. Prior to Barking Dog, Francesca was a designer at PlanetOut, Inc., and Olivia.
A graduate of the esteemed CCA, Francesca loves designing her own party flyers and mix packaging, in addition to traveling the world with her sexy French girlfriend.
Andrew Venell
Web ninja
Andy is a web developer and technical advisor based in San Francisco, where he produces websites for clients ranging from restaurants to artists to local rock bands and consults on many projects, including the first ever website devoted to Filipino-American art history. He has a particular interest in projects that take advantage of the web’s ability to unite dispersed communities.
He received his BA from Brown University where he concentrated in Art Semiotics, with a special focus on new media and representations of the Internet. An early interest in writing and collage led him to Brown’s one-of-a-kind Hypertext Fiction program, where he created a number of interactive narrative projects, culminating in a seminal Internet Art project which has become part of hypertext and net-art curricula in universities worldwide. His early interest in artwork made for the internet led him to view well-executed code as an art form in itself. He brings the same care to web development that he does to his fine art work.
Andy went on to receive an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute with a concentration in New Genres, where he continued to explore artistic uses of technology. Today, he divides his time between web development and graphic design projects, teaching, and his fine art career.
Perhaps most notable about Andy, he’s constructed entirely of Legos™, 16,028 Legos™ to be exact.
