Card Connection, market leader for the franchise distribution of greeting cards in the UK, has announced the appointment of Graham Staff as its new Sales Director following the retirement of Stuart West who has served Card Connection for over 20 years.

Graham, who worked as a Sales Director at The Book People for 11 years, managing a network of self-employed sales agents and a number of large national accounts, will be responsible for the running of the entire sales force at Card Connection.

Michael Johnson, Managing Director at Card Connection explained: “This is a rare opportunity for us to appoint this position, as Stuart West, our current Sales Director is going to retire at the beginning of March after his 20 years dedicated service at Card Connection.”

He added: “In our sales team, we have six regional Sales Managers who look after a network of 62 franchisees in the UK and Ireland and a National Account Manager who establish and maintain business with big brand like BP, Spar, Budgens, WH Smith (Motorway), Shell, BWG Spar in Ireland and C.J. Lang’s in Scotland. We are pleased to welcome Graham on board and he will be working closely with his team to drive sales, support franchisees and grow our business.”

Johnson also told us: “Graham joined earlier this month and was thrown into the fire on his second day by attending this year’s first sales meeting with all the regional Sales Managers, good news is that he survived!”

Graham will be overseeing the implementation of company sales strategy and will focus on business development. He will lead his team to continue providing strong network support to franchisees as well as maintaining excellent customer service.

Graham told us: “I’m delighted to be joining the team here in Farnham alongside such an experienced and successful franchise network. I’m looking forward to continuing to build on our key customer relationships and service levels as I grow into the role.” He added: “I’m very grateful for the support I’ve received so far in these early days from across the business”.

Johnson said: “We are delighted to welcome Graham to the team and hope he has a long and happy career with us. We wish him good luck in his new role”.