Karren Brady became the first lady of football at 23 when she took up her post as the managing director of Birmingham City in March 1993. David Sullivan had spotted her when she was working at Saatchi & Saatchi in the late 1980s and offered a job at Sport Newspapers.

When Sullivan bought Birmingham with the Gold Brothers he raised eyebrows by putting Brady in charge and admitted that she had got the job because her appointment would cause a stir and raise the club’s profile.

Those were the days when sexism ruled – she was ushered towards the ladies' lounge at Villa Park and the directors' wives' box at Vicarage Road instead of the boardroom – but before long her colleagues were calling her “one hard bastard” instead of “bimbo”. In 1996 Birmingham made a profit for the first time in modern history.

Sullivan had spotted a shrewd and tough cookie. Last year she received the all-clear after she had a 5-hour operation in 2006 to repair a brain aneurysm that could have "erupted" and killed her at any time. "The surgeon said that I could not have had a better result," she told The Times last October. "He said, 'It's like you never had it. Your life expectancy has not changed, live your life, don't look back.' I remember refusing to be wheeled down to surgery. I insisted on walking. I thought, 'I'm not dead yet.' "

She is married to Paul Peschisolido, the former Birmingham forward, is a non-executive director of Channel 4 and Mothercare and has a seat on the board of Sport England. She became the youngest managing director of a UK plc when the club were floated on the Stock Exchange in 1997.