About Larry Hampel
Larry’s adventures in advertising began in the mid 1980’s when he went through the copywriter’s equivalent of boot camp: reporting directly to Ed McCabe, the Hall-of-Fame copywriter and founder of Scali, McCabe, Sloves.
The long hours, hard work and psychological abuse paid off as Larry was soon creating award-winning advertising for Perdue Chicken, Nikon Cameras, Western Union and Volvo. By age 30, he had become Group Creative Director, responsible for most of the agency’s marquee accounts.
From there, Larry went on to found Hampel/Stefanides, one of New York’s hottest agencies during the 1990s. Hampel/Stefanides created well-known work for clients like BASF, Hartford Insurance, Castrol Motor Oil, NEC computers, CD Now, and Steve Madden, to name a few.
Most recently, Larry was Executive Creative Director at Cramer Krasselt/NY, where he helped open the office and build it into a 60-person shop. Along the way, he created successful advertising for the likes of [yellow tail] wine, Benjamin Moore paint, HBO Home Video and Patrón Tequila.
Larry has served on various industry boards and has been a finalist judge for the One Show, the Art Director’s Show and the Effies on numerous occasions. He currently lives with his wife and son in Amsterdam, NL, but keeps an apartment in Brooklyn, NY.
Dean Stefanides
Some kids want to be firemen when they grow up. Others want to be astronauts. Dean Stefanides knew from a ridiculously early age that he wanted to be an art director. By high school he even knew what agency he wanted to work for!
So it’s not surprising that Dean has accomplished just about everything there is for an art director to accomplish: from winning countless creative awards to sitting on the boards of prestigious industry organizations.
Dean landed his dream job at Scali, McCabe, Sloves in the early 80's and never looked back. While at Scali, he worked on a wide range of accounts, from Nikon Cameras and Castrol Motor Oil, to Volvo and Continental Airlines. It was also at Scali that Dean first teamed up with Larry Hampel.
In 1993, Dean and Larry founded Hampel/Stefanides which they eventually grew to $150 million in billing with offices in NY and San Francisco, and accounts like BASF, Court TV, NEC and HBO.
Dean has also created a successful vodka called SPUD as well as several wine brands. What’s more, he is the author of a comedic book on dogs which is distributed worldwide.
Dean resides in New York City with his wife Maureen and their six dogs and three cats. He fully understands Greek, and can say a handful of helpful expressions, such as “hello”, “goodbye”, and “may I pet your goat?”