(As featured in Montecito Journal- December 16, 2016- January 5, 2017)
Written by: Richard Mineards
Montecito business executive Demetri Argyropoulos received the perfect 39th birthday present- a knighthood.
Demetri, who attended Westmont College and Harvard Business School, is founder of Avant Global, a Santa Barbara business networking company, and during his successful career has raised tens of millions of dollars for charity, including the Unity Shoppe, CALM, United Way, Habitat for Humanity, the SB Symphony, Lotusland, and the American Hellenic Institute.
To mark his magnificent munificence, Demetri attended an investiture ceremony at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral earlier this month where he became a cavaliere, a knight in the former royal house Order of Merit of Savoy, a rite presided over by HRH prince Emmanuel Philibert, prince of Venice, whose dynastic orders are among the oldest honors of chivalry in the world.
Demetri Argyropoulos at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Demetri Argyropoulos at his investiture as knight in the Order of Merit of Savoy, presided by HRH prince Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, prince of Venice, on December 10 at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick
“Honestly, I was thinking ‘Why me?’” says a self-deprecating Demetri. “There are so many more esteemed people out there, but I was feeling extremely grateful. It’s such a unique honor and was so different. I feel very blessed in so many ways, but this experience was certainly one of them.”
St. Patrick’s recently completed a $110-million renovation.
“It was an extraordinary experience being inside one of the most beautiful and sacred holy places in America,” he adds of the ceremony at the 138-year-old cathedral, which is situated on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, a tiara’s toss from Rockefeller Center.
The night before the investiture, he attended a reception with friends and officials of the esteemed 146-year-old Knickerbocker Club, whose membership has included J.P. Morgan, David Rockefeller, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.