If you had not become a successful businesswoman, what would you be doing now? I would have been involved in business in some way. My first job was with the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. They had done a presentation at our school and I began on their trainee programme. At the time I believed that university was for people who wanted to go into professions such as law and medicine and that life wasn’t for me.

What has been your most satisfying moment at Birmingham City? The first time we were promoted into the Premier League under Steve Bruce via the playoffs in 2002. My second-greatest moment came in 1997 when we floated on the stock market, four years after the club had been in administration (at 27, Brady became the youngest managing director of a plc in the UK).

Would the managers who have worked under you say that your bark is worse than your bite? Ask Barry Fry. I went into the dressing room after one match and dragged him out of the showers, soaking wet. He had slagged off the club’s owners in a TV interview and suggested that they didn’t know what they were doing. The players were all there as I set him straight. Barry was in shock but I got an apology from him before I walked away.

Your husband, Paul Peschiso-lido, has scored several goals against Birmingham City. Did you congratulate him at the end of these games? Oh God, no. I was annoyed every time. I have sold him twice during his football career because the club was short of cash and he was an asset but it hasn’t affected our relationship. He’s Canadian so he didn’t know any better when I sold him to Stoke in 1994. I told him that it was close to London and he would have a lovely time.

Claire Young, runner-up on The Apprentice, did not take up her recent job offer at St Andrew’s but are you active in employing women at the club? I employ a lot of women, about 75% of my management team are women and it’s a very good team. We have the youngest club secretary, who is a woman, and the youngest female human resources director.

Is Amy Winehouse an artistic genius or a dopehead bore? A dopehead bore. She sets a bad example for my young daughter, Sophia. Very sad.

Two years ago you discovered you had a brain aneurysm, which required immediate surgery to prevent it from rupturing. How did you react? Fear was the immediate response. I thought I could die or suffer a stroke at any moment and my main concern was for my children, who were nine and seven years old. The neurologist told me I was fortunate to have survived childbirth. The aneurysm should not reopen, though I will have to undergo brain scans for the rest of my life. I do spend more time with my family, I feel happy with my life and I just get on with it.

You addressed the Tory party conference in Birmingham last weekend and profess to be a fan of David Cameron - but isn’t he a Villa supporter? Something must have gone wrong in his decision-making over football! I like him because he is young and dynamic and passionate about what he wants to do. I also like Sarah Brown, who performs a great role as patron of the White Ribbon Alliance, an organisation that promotes public awareness of the need to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for mothers and newborn babies.