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Stephen D. Hove. Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. Mr. Hove is the chief executive officer and a co-founder of the Company. Prior to Candles.com, Mr. Hove was a founder and officer of NewHomes.com, an online real estate company, with gross sales of $2 billion in 2007. NewHomes.com was sold to Alta Communications, a $1.5 billion private equity firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to NewHomes.com, Mr. Hove was the founder, sole stockholder, and Chairman of the Board of Modern Business Associates (“MBA”), one of the nation’s largest professional employment organizations, with 2007 revenues of $600 million. MBA is the seventh largest privately held company in the Tampa Bay Metro Area. In addition, Mr. Hove founded and was the Chairman of the Board of eSmokes, Inc., one of the pioneers of online internet retailing, which in its first five years of operation had online gross credit card revenues of $200 million. While residing in the heart of Silicon Valley, Mr. Hove became a partner in Strategic Acquisition Ventures, Ltd. (“SAV”), a technology incubator with offices in Palo Alto, California that specialized in technology and Internet investments. With SAV, Mr. Hove had been involved and was an initial investor in Silicon Valley Internet Capital (“SVIC”) and during this time SVIC incubated and was the initial lead investor in Arcsight (Nasdaq“ARST”) which in September 2007 filed for a $75 million initial public offering. In addition, Mr. Hove worked with the founding team of the Inktomi Corporation (Nasdaq: INKT), which went public in 1998 and achieved a multi-billion dollar market capitalization and in Yesmail.com (Nasdaq “YESM”), which went public in 1999 and was immediately purchased by CMGI for $650 million (Nasdaq “CMGI”) all within ten months from its inception. Mr. Hove founded Corporate Properties as well, which was responsible for the construction and development of more than $500 million in commercial and residential real estate. Mr. Hove displays unique entrepreneurial skills and talents, and has been instrumental in the development and promotion of a variety of successful startup companies. Contact information: shove@mac.com, 727-515-3200
Marissa Velez Kraxberger, Creative Director. Mrs. Kraxberger is the marketing director and is the sole designer for the Company’s brand. Mrs. Kraxberger is responsible for the creation of the overall brand image of the candles.com logo, website, collateral, and packaging. Currently residing in New York City, Mrs. Kraxberger works with Diane Von Furstenberg to create and manage graphics for all domestic and international aspects of the Diane Von Furstenberg brand. Mrs. Kraxberger interacts daily with Diane, marketing, public relations, retail, production and sales teams. Mrs. Kraxberger advises on the “look and feel” of the company’s brand image across all platforms and manages projects from concept to final production, projects include advertisements, brand campaigns, lookbooks, press kits, retail training manuals, sales presentations, mock-ups, event related materials such as promotional mailings and signage. Mrs. Kraxberger develops new ideas and creative solutions for marketing and sales to ensure clients satisfaction and revenue growth and works with the executive art director on the creation of ad campaigns and press materials for both print and web mediums. In addition, Mrs. Kraxberger is responsible for all print collateral and environmental design for all domestic and international fashion shows and special events and for concept and execution of store window designs for domestic and international stores. Mrs. Kraxberger will also work alongside department stores and their representation of the DVF brand and assisted in the direction of the overall company re-branding by working alongside the executive marketing director and the team at Baron & Baron. Prior to Diane Von Furstenberg, Mrs. Kraxberger was at Pearl Fisher in New York City and worked directly with the creative director and senior designers on all in-house projects, along with collaborating with another designer to create a new line of products for the innovation of new teen products for Dove. While at Pearl Fisher Mrs. Kraxberger’s other clients besides Dove, included Absolut, Hersheys, and Unilever. Mrs. Kraxberger graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor’s degree of Arts in Art History.

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