Karren Rita Brady, Baroness Brady (born 4 April 1969) is an English business executive and television personality. She is a former managing director of Birmingham City F.C. and former vice-chairman of West Ham United F.C., and an aide to Alan Sugar on The Apprentice. She is a Conservative member of the House of Lords and has been a Small Business Ambassador for the UK government.
Brady's appointment with Birmingham City began in March 1993, when she was 23. In 2002, she became the first woman to hold such a post in the top flight of English football when the team was promoted. She oversaw the company's flotation in 1997, thus becoming the youngest managing director of a UK plc. She left in 2009. In January 2010, she was appointed vice-chairwoman of West Ham United following Sullivan and Gold's purchasing of the club. Brady is a regular writer for the Woman & Home magazine and The Sun. She has also published four books including two novels. Her most recent book, Strong Woman, published in March 2012 and aimed at inspiring women in business, was a Sunday Times Bestseller. On 22 September 2014, Brady was elevated to the House of Lords as a Conservative life peer, taking the title Baroness Brady.
On 17 July 2017, she was appointed by Sir Philip Green to chairman of Taveta, owner of the Arcadia Group.
Brady was brought up in Edmonton, London, and the family house was near the Tottenham Hotspur football ground. Her Irish father, Terry Brady, had made his fortune in printing and property development. Her mother, Rita, is Italian and she has an older brother, Darren. She attended Salcombe Preparatory School in Southgate until she was 11, followed by Poles Convent, a boarding school in Ware, Hertfordshire, and Aldenham School, Elstree, a boys' school which accepted girls in the sixth form, where she gained four A-levels.
Early career and Birmingham City
Brady's career began as a trainee at the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi having been rejected for a place on a journalism course at Harlow College. Despite the course rejection, Brady said in a 2018 interview that she made a conscious decision not to go to university, as she was keen to get out in the world and make her mark. A year later, on joining the London Broadcasting Company (LBC) as an advertising account executive, she targeted the advertising business of one of her father's largest clients, publisher David Sullivan, owner of the Daily Sport and the Sunday Sport. Sullivan spent more than £2,000,000 on advertising in six months and was so impressed with Brady that he gave her a job.
Sullivan offered her a job with Sport Newspapers, and she became one of his directors at the age of 20. While in Sullivan's employ, Brady spotted an advert in the Financial Times for the sale of Birmingham City F.C. when the club was in receivership and persuaded Sullivan to buy it and let her run it. When Sullivan commented that she would have to be twice as good as a man to do that, Brady replied "Well that's not difficult." 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 when she started work as managing director of Birmingham City F.C. in March 1993. She encountered sexism in the role. The first time she got on the team bus, a player said "I can see your tits from here". Brady replied "When I sell you to Crewe, you won't be able to see them from there will you?" She sold the player shortly afterwards.
In 2008, Sullivan and Brady were arrested by City of London Police, interviewed and released on bail as part of the investigation into the 2006 allegations of corruption in English football, which also involved similar actions against players and officials from other clubs; club chairman David Gold was interviewed as a witness. The club stated that no charges had been brought and that Brady denied any wrongdoing. The investigation involved tax and national insurance offences relating to two players. Gold said that it was "utterly wrong that this highly professional businesswoman has been made a victim in a witch-hunt against football". In August 2009, it was confirmed that no further action would be taken. She left Birmingham City two months later after Sullivan and Gold sold the club to Carson Yeung for £81.5 million. The same month she was appointed as a non-executive director to the England 2018 World Cup bid advisory board.
In January 2010, Brady was appointed vice-chairman of West Ham United by new joint-chairmen David Sullivan and David Gold. Writing in her newspaper column Brady said "To West Ham fans I'll make a single pledge – while we are on the board, we will hang in the Tower of London before your club again goes through the financial turmoil which so nearly brought it down". Brady said she liked the idea of changing the club's name to West Ham Olympic. David Gold subsequently said that the club would always be West Ham United under his chairmanship but "What you might do is call the stadium West Ham Olympic stadium. I can make a case for that." Brady was responsible for negotiating a move on behalf of West Ham United from their Boleyn Ground to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London. Initially the intention was for West Ham to take ownership of the stadium, this bid collapsing in October 2011 following a legal delay caused by a rival bid by Tottenham Hotspur. Investigators working on behalf of Tottenham were subsequently charged with fraud for obtaining illegally the private telephone records of Brady. In December 2012, West Ham were announced as the highest ranked bidder to become the anchor concessionaire and tenant of the Olympic Stadium. Of the move Brady said "We are ambitious for our great club and aim to set the benchmark for visiting away and neutral supporters from across the globe to come and enjoy the iconic Stadium and be part of our Premier League club experience".
West Ham United were named as anchor concessionaires for the Olympic Stadium on 23 March 2013. In July 2013, Brady gave evidence before a House of Lords committee, where she said the club has debts of £70m that would need to be paid before the proposed move to the Olympic Stadium in 2016. Brady oversaw the club's move from the Boleyn Ground to the Olympic Stadium in the summer of 2016. Subsequently renamed as London Stadium, the move saw West Ham United increase their capacity from 35,000 to 57,000 seats – which were completely sold out before the start of the 2016–17 campaign, giving the Club the third biggest home attendance in the Premier League. Following the move to the Olympic Stadium, some supporters who wanted to stay at Upton Park targeted verbal abuse towards Brady and other board members during crowd disturbances during West Ham's home 2–4 defeat to Watford on 10 September 2016. In October 2016, Brady received further criticism after describing West Ham's move to the London Stadium as "a chance to rebrand the club". Brady later clarified her comments, made at the Leaders Sport Business Summit, and called West Ham's move to the new stadium "part of our ambitious strategy to take our club to the very top of the world's most-popular sport."
On 21 April 2026, after sustained protests from West Ham's fanbase against her involvement in the club, West Ham announced Brady had departed the club.
Brady has also been the chairman of Bauer's Kerrang! and had a seat on the board of Sport England. She was a non-executive director of Channel 4 television but resigned to take a position at Syco, the company jointly owned by Simon Cowell and Sony. In September 2010 she joined the board of Taveta Investments Ltd. with Sir Philip Green, resigning from a non-executive position with Mothercare where she had been for seven years. She is an ambassador for Barclays Life skills, which aims to offer young people workplace experience. She is also the patron of the Life After Stroke Awards and an ambassador for Well Being for Women.