About Card Connection – The UK’s leading greeting card franchise
Card Connection is the market leader in the franchised distribution of greeting cards and operates a Franchise Network which covers the UK and Ireland. We supply over 12,000 outlets, mainly in convenience, from independent retailers through to major National Accounts such as Spar, BP (M&S Simply Food), Budgens, WH Smith (Motorway), Shell, BWG Spar in Ireland and C.J. Lang’s Spar in Scotland.
Established in 1992, we are part of UK Greetings Ltd, the British subsidiary of one of the world’s largest greeting card companies, American Greetings Inc. We provide unrivalled service to the retailer, and have been described as one of the best run franchisees in the UK. We invest in people and are proud of our reputation as a caring and professional franchisor and employer.
Franchise Support Managers
Meet the management team
Ceri Stirland
Chairman
Adrian Smith
Finance Director
Graham Staff
Managing Director
Graham joined Card Connection as Sales Director in January 2018, joining our passionate and knowledgeable sales team here is Farnham. Before joining Card Connection Graham had spent 20+ years in the book selling sector and brings with him a wealth of experience managing a variety of both employed and self-employed sales teams and their necessary support departments and systems.
Kelly Courtenay
Creative Director
Kelly has worked in the greeting card sector since 2001 starting as a graduate designer with a degree in illustration. Her broad experience consists of working within a large-scale corporate environment in various roles at International Greetings for 5 years as well as with small, high-end publisher Hotchpotch as Product and Marketing Manager, working on award winning designs and ranges.
Kelly joined Card Connection in 2010 as Senior Product Manager and was made Creative Director in 2014.
Matthew Heathcock
Sales Director
Matthew joined Card Connection as Sales Director in October 2022. He heads up our sales teams both in Farnham and in the field bringing a wealth of experience managing and developing sales across a variety of significant retailers and major multiples during his career. Having also previously owned a franchise greetings card business himself, Matthew also has an excellent appreciation for the challenges and opportunities franchisees face day-to-day.
Andy Roberts
Operations Manager
Gus Rey
IT Manager
Gus Rey joins the management team as IT Manager for the business, and comes from a technical IT background having worked for the UK’s leading Veterinary IT software company. Gus now manages a team of support technicians, and leads the project management of the franchisee ipad app software providing the franchisees remote merchandising capabilities.
Becky Neave
Sales Support Manager
Becky joined Card Connection in January 2009 as National Account Controller and was promoted to Sales Support Supervisor, in December 2016. Previous experience in Sales, Marketing, Credit Control and Office Management, has enabled Becky to grow within her role and in November 2020 Becky's job title was changed to Sales Support Manager to better reflect her role and joined the Management team.