About Us
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love” – Rumi
Our Story
Stellabean was founded in 2004 by Founding Partner Andrea Sferes, and joined by Partner Kevin Philip in 2009. Former employees of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, they met and received their formal hospitality branding education there, learning how to bring hospitality brands to life in photography, online, print, identity with visual language development and with branded experiences on property. Having nurtured that experience and integrated research, strategy and a deep level of listening to their stakeholders, they are grateful to have had the opportunity to create numerous hospitality brands, along with the team they have retained for many years, if not since their days at Starwood.
Prior to joining Stellabean, Kevin worked with Starwood Hotels & Resorts as a Creative Director for the W Hotels, St. Regis and The Luxury Collection brands. He also served as Head of Guest Experience for the Le Meridien brand. However, Kevin first began his career in hospitality as the Front Office Manager at Pan Pacific San Francisco. He then traveled the world photographing hotels for the Markoshamer Group. Kevin graduated from Cornell’s School of Hotel Management and finds solace in alpine mountain climbing, red wines from northern Italy.and sailing.
Kevin Philip,
Principal
Andrea Sferes,
Founder
Prior to founding Stellabean, Andrea was the Lead Interactive Designer at Starwood Hotels & Resorts and has continually been a pioneer in web design. In 1995, she created danceonline.com, for which she received accolades from institutions such as CNBC and Wired magazine. Her formal design training occurred at Razorfish, where she worked as a visual designer, and her design sensibility is informed by her passions: travel, the body in motion, yoga and the power and beauty of botanicals.
Cicek Erel joined Stellabean after graduating magna cum laude from New York University with a Bachelor of Science in Media, Culture, and Communications. Cicek has published numerous articles for Elite Traveler and The New York Times’ travel blog, “In Transit.” Cicek is a practitioner of yoga and a constant traveler to her home country of Turkey.
Cicek Erel,
Creative Project Manager
Ashley Parker
Senior Art Director
Ashley believes strong ideas come from life experiences. Originally from Boston, Ashley has worked & lived on both coasts of the country expanding upon and sharing her ideas of art and design. She allows creativity to strike at any moment and knows first hand it stems from both curiosity and intuition. Ashley studied Communication Design at Syracuse University. When not designing, Ashley spends her summers sailing, and winters skiing in the Northeast.
Todd Emerson
Illustrator &
Production Specialist
Todd Emmerson is an award-winning artist and designer with over 20 years of design and production experience. Previous to his work with Stellabean, Todd was a Graphic Designer for Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Throughout his independent consulting career, Todd achieved design solutions for many high-end clients including Sony, Penton Publishing, Victorinox, Swiss Army Brands, Pilot Pen and Unilever. As a US Army Infantry combat veteran, Todd is involved in many Veteran affairs including the Verteran’s Art Show.
Since 2002, Kristina has been designing highly stylized and meaningful print and web projects. She collaborates on projects with many creative agencies and works closely with local businesses. After studying Applied Media Arts at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Kristina moved to San Diego and became Art Director at Dream Communications Inc.
Kristina Sullivan
Senior Designer