Santoro, one of the longest established greeting card publishers, has been officially presented with its second Queen’s award for Enterprise for International Trade, at a ceremony at Windsor Castle.
Fabian Santoro, the son of Meera and Lucio Santoro who founded Santoro in 1985, joined dignitaries, fellow business executives and met Prince Charles at the event for the Queen’s Award 2020 recipients.
As well as being involved in Santoro, Fabian, together with his sister Tara co-founded Santorus, a luxury fashion and interiors brand.
This award, the UK’s most prestigious accolade for international trade, comes a couple of years after Santoro was recognised in the 2018 Queen’s Award roll call and continues the line of UK greeting card companies which have been decorated with this award in recent years, including Blue Eyed Sun, The Art File and Wrendale Designs.
Commenting when she found that Santoro was to receive this second accolade, Meera summed up: “To have received this Award for the second time is an immensely proud moment for us. We feel hugely grateful to be able to celebrate the company’s successes, which we have built and grown organically over 35 years.”
As well as having been a trailblazer of 3D greeting cards for decades, Santoro has capitalised on its ability to create design-led brands, with Gorjuss being its most recent notable triumph, which feature within the company’s own product portfolio as well as being manufactured under licence by other businesses all over the world.
Fabian followed in the footsteps of his mother in meeting Prince Charles at the recent event, but refrained from making any cheeky comments unlike Meera did when she went to Buckingham Palace to receive the company’s inaugural Queen’s Award!
“I said a good few things to Charles, but the most printable was that he “actually looked hotter in real life” than he did on camera,” Meera admitted to PG Buzz. “I also whispered something cheeky in his ear which he roared out loud about, while everyone else was wide-eyed as to what I’d actually said!” she added but refuses to divulge her utterance!
