Former Elliman CMO Joins Staging Firm Vesta Home

Former Douglas Elliman executive Stephanie Garbarini scored a new post as the chief marketing officer with Vesta Home.

Garbarini, who previously served as executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the brokerage, is joining the Los Angeles-based staging company after exiting Elliman in December and ending her six-year tenure with the brokerage.

Under her new role, Garbarini said she’s tasked with leveraging her expertise in luxury real estate to build partnerships with agents, brokerages and developers and to “amplify” the company’s other lines of business outside of staging, including furniture production and interior design.

“I understand that client,” said Garbarini, referring to real estate professionals and their high-net-worth buyers and sellers. “Vesta has a great brand, but I think we need to define it.”

Vesta’s founder and CEO, Julian Buckner, said the firm brought Garbarini on, in part, due to her “deep experience” in luxury real estate and her “intimate knowledge of how the minds of real estate agents and developers work.”

Buckner said executives like Garbarini will help differentiate the company from its competitors, which he described as typically “mom-and-pop shops.”

Garbarini’s departure from Elliman came after the brokerage hired a new chief strategy officer, Wendy Purvey, and as it turned to a rebrand, led by branding and advertising agency Watson. Elliman replaced Garbarini with Natalie Passerini, who served as vice president of marketing between 2016 and 2018 before moving on to roles at Heritage House Sotheby’s International and PlanOmatic.

Before joining Elliman in 2019, Garbarini was the vice president of marketing at Barneys New York and Liz Claiborne, and worked as the director of brand marketing at J. Crew.

Vesta has outposts in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and South Florida, though it services properties across the country, including active projects in Nashville, Boston and Hawaii. The firm acquired two furniture rental companies, Feather and Fernish, in 2023.