WYP TEAM

Ari Kathein

President /Designer

My family has been in the fine jewelry business for over 40 years. I am a GIA Graduate Gemologist and have been involved in the jewelry industry for most of my life. As a proud life-long geek, I named the company “What’s Your Passion” as it combines what I love, with what I do. 
You’ll find that all our fine jewelry is made in America. We make jewelry for the FANatics as well as the casual fans. These pieces of wearable art started when my wife and I decided to spend our honeymoon at San Diego Comic Con (her idea).   
I’ve always dabbled in jewelry design, once at SDCC I showed a few people a geeky ring I made for myself. Everyone loved the quality and fine details behind the design. Fellow fans told me that they would love to display their passion with jewelry designed like mine. I knew then What’s Your Passion needed to be a reality. Fast forward a couple years and I closed a licensing deal with Marvel Comics to sell licensed fine jewelry. Since then, we have added licenses such as Crunchyroll and Neopets, as well as designed for artists and celebrities such as Kevin Smith and Anne Stokes. We continue to take on new challenges and won’t stop until we conquer the geek world and beyond. This has been a passion project, and one I could have never hoped to achieve alone. My sister, best friend, and CEO, Avital Kathein, has truly helped bring this dream into a reality and we wouldn’t be where we are today without her.   
The What’s Your Passion Jewelry team are all geeks and we’re all doing this because we, like you, love this culture whether it be gaming, anime, or comics, we have something for everyone. 

Avital Kathein

CEO / Designer

Avital Kathein is one half of the brother-sister team who created and launched What’s Your Passion Jewelry. With an extensive background as a jewelry designer based in South West Florida, Avital has breathed life into many of the designs that you see across their collection.  When designing a piece for a brand’s collection, she puts the same effort and creativity into each design that she does when she’s crafting a one-of-a-kind diamond ring for a client. Growing up in the family’s jewelry business, she recognizes how much designing a WYP piece needs to work not only when on display or at a convention, but also has to be able to be integrated into every day ensembles.  
Avital’s passion is clearly design. With a blank sheet of paper, a charcoal pencil, and inspirational art from the brand, she begins to sketch and craft a pin, ring, earring… whatever… so that a two-dimensional flat drawing can work in three dimensions. You’ll notice her nod to her love of earrings specifically in the Captain Marvel Goose earrings, one of WYP’s hottest sellers. 
Particularly, she loves equally when the stars of the movies and shows have expressed personal gratitude and love to her for creating pieces that they wear daily to show off to fans and even flash on the red carpet, as well as when the fans send her pics on social media of them wearing the pieces to their favorite events.

 

Michael D'Alessio

Chief Marketing Officer

Mike D'Alessio has been in Promotion Marketing for over 25 years.  He has helped to launch the first ever camera phone (Sony Ericsson T68i), Hasbro's long-running "Plan a Family Gamenight" promo, and has worked on live events and design for every Marvel Studios movie launched to date.  He has the honor of hosting for companies such as Marvel Entertainment and 2K Games, entertaining their fans at conventions.  He's also the owner of the ACBC convention in Atlantic City, and the first and only fully exclusive comic con cruise, Fan2Sea (now: ComiXcruise).  He's an avid photographer and artist who has sold his works domestically and abroad.

 

Stephanie Vosburgh

E-Commerce and Convention Sales Manager

Steph Vosburgh has been in the Hospitality Industry for little over 15 years. She currently works at one of the largest theme park companies in the world. She met Ari and Avital a year after they launched What's Your Passion at Megacon in Orlando through a mutual friend and have been inseparable since. She worked hard as a booth worker and got to know the team more through their love of the many fandoms. Now she helps work the online shop when she isn't on the convention floor with the team or doing her love of LARPing and being her elf self. If you have questions and email the team, it's more than likely her answering you!