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Donald John Lewin OBE (11 June 1933 – 25 October 2024) was a British businessman. He was the founder and former chairman of Clinton Cards, a chain of greeting cards shops in the United Kingdom. He and his family were estimated to be worth £139 million in 2008.
Lewin was born on 11 June 1933 in Bow, London, the son of a chimney sweep.[1][2] After leaving school at the age of 15, he worked for a building firm, did two years of National Service, sold brushes from door to door, sold credit and, when he was 26, got a job as a freelance salesman selling greeting cards to retailers.[1][3]
In 1968, he opened a specialist greeting card shop in Epping, Essex, and created the company Clinton Cards, named after his son, Clinton.[1][3] He opened a chain of seven shops, five of which he then sold to reinvest in larger shops in better locations.[1][3] By 1988, he had created a chain of 87 shops and floated the company on the stock exchange for a valuation of £20 million, retaining 50 per cent of the shares and using money raised to acquire rival greeting cards chains.[1]
By 2004, the company had 800 shops in the United Kingdom and Ireland, was valued at £180 million on the London Stock Exchange and had sales of £360 million.[4] The family stake in the business, share sales and other assets were estimated to be worth £139 million in 2008.[5] In 2012, the business had 767 shops and employed 8,000 people but went into administration later that year.[6] Lewin was made an OBE in 1996 and his autobiography, Think of a Card, was published in 2008.[7][8] He died on 25 October 2024, at the age of 91.[9]
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