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.

Shannon is the legal guardian of a remarkable17-year-old girl, Lexi.  She recently completed her fifth AIDS Lifecycle ride from San Franciso to Los Angeles. In her spare time, Shannon enjoys sleeping, running, playing basketball and golf with Lexi, bowling in Canada with her partner in life, love and Sweet-ness Jen, and working to overcome her fear of swimming to compete in triathlons. She’s an enthusiastic supporter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Human Rights Campaign, the Galapagos Conservancy and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Jen Rainin
founding partner
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A prolific traveler and philanthropist, Jen 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.

Jen brings a variety of experience in the non-profit world to her work with Sweet. Currently, Jen helms The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, a charitible foundation dedicated to supporting the arts, education and medical research. She earned a doctorate in education from the University of Chicago in Illinois. She has volunteered as a literacy consultant for non-profits. She’s a founding member of the San Francisco Ballet’s Encore! group, which works to expand interest in the ballet to a younger audience. And she’s organized a number of events to support UCSF’s Center for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease.

Additionally, Jen is a generous supporter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Human Rights Campaign and Equality California. A mother of two adorable boys, Jen is also a working actress who is completing an intense year of Meisner training.

Sweet is the perfect blend of her philanthropic nature, adventurous spirit and desire to build women’s community all over the world.

Nicoll Quinn
Director of Travel
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Whether it’s cooking up her next great travel adventure or concocting a perfect meal to compliment a tasty new wine she’s found, Nicoll lives to explore all of the flavors of the world. You name it, and she’s been there or tried it (or she’s planning to!), having inherited the discovery gene from both of her parents.

Nicoll has always found a way to marry the passion she has for travel with the interest that she has in understanding the diversity of our planet, whether as a kid trucking along the backroads of the United States and Canada with Mom and Dad in the VW bus, as a university student studying abroad in Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil, or as an adult bringing people to all four corners of the earth with Cruise West and Olivia.

Interested in what that shorebird is called? Just ask Nicoll. Want to know how to cook a cactus? She can tell you that, too. Fancy a detailed account of the complexities of photographing wildlife? Nicoll’s your girl here, as well. Take a trip with her, and you’ll never be bored: she’ll keep you excited about what you’re experiencing, she’ll help you see things you would otherwise have missed, and you’ll make discoveries along the way that will last a lifetime.

You’ll have to keep up with her. She’s been known to summit mountaintops, chase penguins, swim with the sea lions and green sea turtles, complete triathlons and half-marathons, and spend loads of time doing creative things in the kitchen. She’s just as at home in a dusty pair of hiking boots as she is in a sassy pair of stilettos, and she’s traveled on six of the seven continents wearing each!

Making the most of every moment—and savoring every tasty morsel—is important to Nicoll. Finding those awesome spots that create life-changing memories is what she does, and what she lives to do. Now, she’s lending her considerable talents to a company whose values very much mirror her own: how Sweet!

Flavia Belli
Sales Manager
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Think of her as a matchmaker. 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.

Flavia honed her matchmaking skills at Olivia, where she paired thousands of women with extraordinary vacations. 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 in the gym, at the yoga studio or on her own adventures around the world. She loves San Francisco nightlife, good friends and great wine. 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.

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Mariah Hanson
Dinah Shore founder and owner of Club Skirts

Founder of Club Skirts and the modern day Dinah Shore Weekend, Mariah Hanson produced her first solo Dinah Shore Weekend in 1991. Taking over the stunning Palm Springs Museum, booking entire hotels so that they were 100 percent lesbian occupied, bringing in national sponsors, current national recording artists, and keeping all events in walking distance, she developed a Dinah concept that is still imitated today. The simple but daring concept catapulted the Dinah to international fame. Today, The Dinah is considered the largest lesbian event in the world.

Mariah sits on the Board of Equality California, the non-profit organization that currently fights the marriage battle. She also sits on the "Women’s Night" committee for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Both organizations are named charity recipients of The Club Skirts and PlanetOut Dinah Shore Weekend.

Mariah has always believed in giving back to our community. Past recipients have included The San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Community Center, GLAAD, The Women’s Building, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Jon Sims Center, Ladies Philharmonic, Uhuru Movement, various lesbian film projects, HRC, Lyon Martin Health Clinic, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Center, many gay and lesbian politicians, Yes on S, Yes on K and more!

Mariah thinks giving back is important. That’s why she’s so excited to be on Sweet’s Board of Advisors, where she can find creative ways to raise money for the causes she believes in while having a blast.

Jeff Titterton
CEO, RealJock, Inc.
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Jeff Titterton says he is one of the gayest entrepreneurs in the world. Don’t believe him? Just type his name into Google and watch how almost every one of the hundreds of entries has the words “gay” or “LGBT” in it.

Jeff is the founder and CEO of RealJock, Inc., an LGBT social networking startup whose first site RealJock.com, launched in 2006. RealJock.com is one of the fastest-growing gay sites on the web and is a top 20 Hit Wise LGBT site. The site blends social networking for gay and bisexual men with an interest in health and fitness. It features expert workout and nutrition plans from professional experts, popular forums where members interact with each other on subjects ranging from losing weight and getting stronger to dating and sex and coming out, and advanced social networking features including profiles, email, search, instant messaging, music, and more. The company is working on a second site, which will launch in 2009.

Before embarking into the world of gay fitness, Jeff served as the senior vice president of member sales and marketing at PlanetOut, Inc., parent company of Gay.com, PlanetOut.com and Kleptomaniac.com. He worked at PlanetOut for five years and one was of four section-16 officers when the company went public. Before going all gay, all day, Jeff worked in communications and editorial at AlexanderOgilvy and Future Networks, among others.

Jeff lives in San Francisco with his partner Sheldon and their two young children. He is a former board member of the Family Equality Council and makes sure to attend the organization’s Family Week in Provincetown each year, where hundred of LGBT-headed families descend upon Provincetown for a week of fun in the sun. When he’s not changing diapers or driving to preschool, Jeff loves to bike and run, and even manages to squeeze in the occasional triathlon and marathon.