Karren Brady

Infobox_Person
name = Karren Brady
imagesize =

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caption = As guest speaker at the University of Wolverhampton, March 2008
birth_date = Birth year and age|1969
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
occupation =
known_for = Managing director of Birmingham City F.C., award winning business woman.
title =
children = 2
spouse = Paul Peschisolido
salary =
networth =
website = [http://www.karrenbrady.com www.karrenbrady.com]

Karren Brady (born April 1969) is a British broadcasting and sport business manager.

She is best known for being the managing director of Birmingham City Football Club. She was appointed in March 1993,cite web
url=http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F91F9AB8169FF84&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=0D0CB57AB53DF815 |title=Sullivan takes control |publisher=The Times |date=1993-03-06 |accessdate=2008-01-04] when only 23 years old, and in 2002 became the first woman to hold such a post in the top flight of English football. She was responsible for its flotation in 1997, thus becoming the youngest managing director of a UK plc.

Early life

Brady was brought up in Edmonton, London, and the family house was near to the Tottenham Hotspur football ground. She has an elder brother, and described her father as a printer and property developer. Her mother is Italiancite web|title=Times on Line, Time and Place, 26 August 2007 includes picture"|url=http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article2312753.ece |accessdate=2008-08-14] . Brady's parents sent her, at the age of 13 years, to Poles Convent, a private boarding school in Ware, Hertfordshire. Between the ages of 16 and 18 years she attended Aldenham School, Elstree, a boys' public school, and she has claimed that being one of only a few girls at the school helped her confidence and independence.

Career

Her first job was working at Saatchi & Saatchi the advertising agency. She left to join London Broadcst Company (LBC) where she managed an account for radio advertising with several clients, who initially did not spend much money; however, one of the clients, David Sullivan, encouraged by Brady, spent more than £2,000,000 on advertising in just 6 months, which earned Brady more commission than the rest of the sales team put together. Sullivan offered her a job with his firm, and she became one of the directors at the age of 20 years. While in Sullivan's employ, Brady spotted an advert for the sale of Birmingham City F. C. in the Financial Times, when the club was in receivership,cite news
url=http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F91F5A5EFFF8D03&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=0D0CB57AB53DF815 |title=Receivers put football club up for sale |author=Goodbody, John |publisher=The Times |date=1992-11-07 |accessdate=2008-01-04] and persuaded Sullivan to buy it and let her run it. Sullivan later commented that he agreed to the deal because such a young, female director would attract publicity to the club, and also because Brady was a "Sacker". Brady was 23 years of age when she started work as the Managing Director of Birmingham City F. C. in March 1993.cite episode |title=Desert Island Discs with Karren Brady |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20071230.shtml
series=Desert Island Discs | serieslink=Desert Island Discs |network=BBC |station=Radio 4 |airdate=2007-12-29]

She is also chairman of Emap's Kerrang, and has a seat on the board of Sport England. She is a non-executive director of Mothercare PLC and Channel 4 Television.cite news|url=http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOcLadwz87kGAgP0YTmkJU_A-Big|title=Brady and Sullivan arrested|publisher=Press Association|date=2008-04-09|accessdate=2008-04-10]

In 2008, Brady and Sullivan were arrested by City of London Police, interviewed and released on bail, as part of the investigation into 2006 allegations of corruption in English football, which also involved similar actions taken against players and officials from other clubs; club chairman David Gold was interviewed as a witness.Cite news
url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/24/birminghamcityfc.championship?gusrc=rss&feed=football
title=Gold faces further questioning in corruption investigation
date=2008-07-24
work=The Guardian
author=Stuart James] According to press reports, no decisions on charges had been made, as of July 2008.

Personal life

In 1995 Brady married Canadian footballer, Paul Peschisolido, who played for Birmingham City for two seasons, 1992-93 and 1993-94. About one year later, she had her first child, a girl, and she went back to work three days after the birth, although she felt very exhausted at times. She had about six weeks off work after the birth of her second child, a boy.

Brady had a whole body scan as part of a medical screen and a cerebral aneurysm was found unexpectedly, which had the potential to cause dangerous intercranial bleeding at any time. On February 3, 2006, at the age of 36, at very short notice, she underwent neurosurgery, and she was back at work about one month later, fully recovered. [cite web |url =http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/4682630.stm |publisher = BBC News |title = Football MD out of intensive care |date = 2006-02-05|accessdaymonth = 13 April |accessyear =2008]

Despite being a long-serving director of Birmingham City, Karren is actually an Arsenal supporter.

Charity work

Brady appeared as a celebrity contestant on "Comic Relief Does The Apprentice" in March 2007 as was team leader for the girls team, who won the show raising £1,000,000 for Comic Relief. And in June 2008, was a guest interviewer in series four of "The Apprentice" – interviewing the final five.

Awards

*In 1995, she was voted the 98th sexiest woman in the world by the readers of "FHM" magazine.

*In 2006 Brady was "Cosmopolitan" magazine's Woman of the Year, the mother of two from Solihull, England was also named in the category of 'Woman Who Has Changed The World'.

*Brady was named as Business Woman of the Year 2007 on 5 October 2007.

*Brady has twice been recognised by the The Queen; once in March 2003 as a top 100 'Women Achiever' and in 2007 as one of the UK's Top 200 Women to Impact Business & Industry,

References

External links

* [http://www.karrenbrady.com Karren Brady's official website]
* [http://www.gordonpoole.com/?ArtistID=395 Karren Brady agencies biography]