About Us

The Kiwi Tree is a brand new online boutique that provides stylishly chic and high quality stationery, gift wrap, greeting cards and gift accessories to those most passionate for the unique and trendy.

Wherever you are, whoever you are, life is full of craziness. The Kiwi Tree has packaged it all up and tied it with a bow, and we present to you, the gift of being chic and unique.

The Kiwi Girls

Jess McCandless, Chief Executive Officer
Jess’s entrepreneurial spirit and business savvy have been an integral part of The Kiwi Tree’s success. She brings with her a diverse and well-rounded background with over eight years of advertising and marketing experience. Most recently, she has worked as an account executive and contact strategist where she honed her customer relations skills and refined her strategic marketing expertise while managing several major accounts and campaigns.

Jess is originally from Salt Lake City, UT (cue stereotypes and typical bar jokes) but she now calls Virginia Beach, VA her home. Her husband is a bad ass military man, which in turn makes her a bad ass military wife (is there any other kind?) and she is the mother of a rescued Pit Bull named Rugby. Jess survives off Coca-Cola and reality television, deeply regrets the tattoo she got on her lower back when she was 17 (don’t we all!) and secretly loves to cook but doesn’t want her husband to know, as expectations will follow.

Kristin Bowen, Creative Director
Kristin has been the guiding creative force in the development of The Kiwi Tree and oversees the conceptual design and creative strategy that gives the company its unique edge. She combines eight years of advertising and design experience as a graphic designer and art director with a modern, clean and bold sense of design. The result is a tremendously versatile style that allows her to create successful designs for a number of entrepreneurial ventures.

A Virginia Beach, VA native and lover of all things “beach”, Kristin waivers daily between flip-flops and high heels. After earning her degree in media arts and design from James Madison University, she gravitated back towards the sun and sand and has since traveled and lived in locations that offer both. Once a competitive swimmer, she now spends her time in the water on a surfboard and is often joined there by her husband. The newlyweds are the loving parents of a sweet-natured pit bull named Makai and a loyal border collie called Sam. Kristin is entirely too dependent on her TIVO, claims to hate “breakfast meats” and can usually be found wandering the aisles of Target.

Carey VonOhlen, Chief Financial Officer
Carey’s wealth of media planning and buying experience and ability to translate marketing needs into creative solutions make her a tremendous asset to The Kiwi Tree. Currently a senior contract strategist with a growing advertising agency, Carey works on several tourism and consumer packaged good accounts and makes every dollar work as hard as possible with proper budget management, strategy, and creativity. Her well-rounded experience, budgeting expertise and talent for multi-project management make her the ideal person to oversee the financial operations of The Kiwi Tree.

After several failed attempts at escaping, Carey has finally embraced her status as a Virginia Beach, VA native. One of those attempts included a 4-year stint at Virginia Tech where she earned her degree in communications with a cognate in marketing. Like most Hokies, Carey bleeds maroon and orange and takes her football extremely seriously. She and her husband, whom she met while pretending to play kickball, complete their family with a pound puppy named Tilley. Carey doesn’t eat pork or beef but loves bacon and filet mignon, has an unhealthy knowledge of Friends trivia and secretly seeks out opportunities to prove her hula-hooping superiority.