Karren Brady – First Woman in Football – to “Pitch up” at Grampian Awards

Date: 30 March 2005

Karren Brady, Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club, has been announced as the keynote speaker for the 2005 Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise. The Awards, which recognise business achievement in the north east of Scotland for companies of all sizes and are sponsored by The Royal Bank of Scotland and Business Gateway (in association with Scottish Enterprise Grampian). The annual awards are organised by Enterprise North East Trust (Enterprise) and the 2005 awards ceremony will be held on Thursday 9 June at Ardoe House Hotel by Aberdeen.

Karren is known as the first woman in football. She has been Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club since 1993 and has turned the Club's fortunes around. She took over Birmingham when it was in liquidation, and in her first year at the helm, the Club recorded a financial trading profit. In 1996 the Club made an overall profit for the first time in modern history, and in February 1997 the club launched on the stockmarket valued at the time of float at ?25 million. She was the youngest Managing Director of a PLC in the UK. In recent years Karren has increased the average gate of the Club from 6,000 to over 25,000. Prior to being at Birmingham City, Karren was an account handler at Saatchi and Saatchi and a director at Sport Newspapers.

"Each year more than 300 business people from across the north east attend the Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise," says Chris Travis, chief executive of Enterprise. "We always strive to have a speaker who has had a varied life of business ups and downs to inspire these guests. Karren's experience in turning around Birmingham City Football Club, in a male dominated arena, is sure to provide much food for thought. As well as her achievements in increasing the gate at Birmingham City, she has ensured that planned and managed diversification into Club services such as mortgages, insurance, credit cards and training services has paid off and she has introduced many community initiatives."

Tickets are now available for the Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise black tie event on 9 June at Ardoe House at a cost of ?70 each (plus VAT) or ?700 (plus VAT) for a table of ten. The event begins with a champagne reception at 7pm, with carriages at 11.45pm. Tickets for the event can be booked by calling 01467 672535, or emailing events@enetrust.com. Tickets are expected to be in demand as the event has been a sell out each year since it's inception.

Winners of the six categories will be announced on the night - New Business Award; Young Business Award; Business Growth Award; The Alick Buchanan Smith Spirit of Enterprise Award; The Sir Ian Wood Award for Innovation; The Ian Davidson Award for Business Entrepreneurship. Winners in 2004 included Aberdeen based IT specialists Pragma, Whitehills Harbour Commissioners and Judith Thorpe of Thorpe Molloy. More about the Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise can be found at www.enetrust.com.

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