Ms Brady will soon become a non-executive Director at the retail group in September. She would be the first female board director to be recruited by Sir Philip. The Chief Executive, Ian Grabiner, will be helped by her to develop the strategy of the group. Arcadia's brands such as Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins are mainly female-oriented.

The 41 year old Ms Brady was appointed in the most famous for running Birmingham City football club in 1993, when she was 23 years old. Now that she is appointed to the Arcadia board, there is every possibility that Ms Brady will step down from the board of Mothercare, the maternity and babywear retailer, as a non-executive director. A lot of changes have been made to Arcadia board over the last year by Sir Philip.

He appointed Mr. Grabiner to the role of chief executive of Arcadia, last October. The son of his wife Tina, Brett Palos is also appointed to Arcadia's board.

The appointment of Mr. Grabiner was a sign of Sir Philip's stepping back from the day-to-day running of the Topshop-to-Burton business, according to a few people.

But he said, "I go and do what needs to get done. The re-invention of some of these brands means there is a lot do to. Ian does operations. He's a genius at it. I would bet him against anybody out there in terms of understanding how to use store space and get the sales densities".