Eileen Brady

Eileen Brady (born 1961 in Chicago) is a Portland, Oregon businesswoman best known as a co-founder and early backer of the natural-foods grocery chain New Seasons Market. She grew up in Evanston, Illinois — the eldest of five children of an attorney/businessman father and a community-activist mother who served on the Evanston city council — attended Hampshire College for a year, and graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She moved to Portland in 1986 and, with her then-husband Tim O'Connor, took jobs at Nature's Fresh Northwest, an organic grocer, working across roles including human resources and marketing into the mid-1990s.

In 1995 Brady moved into technology, developing and marketing educational CD-ROMs at Graphic Media and later becoming a vice president at @Once, an email-marketing company, around 1999. Proceeds from that dot-com-era success became part of the capital she contributed to New Seasons Market at its late-1990s launch. Her exact founding role is contested: co-founder Chuck Eggert (who with Stan Amy provided the bulk of the startup money) says she never held a management job or worked for the company, while supporters note she provided a portion of the startup capital, sat on the original launch team, helped articulate the company's values, and served as a public spokesperson. Her husband, Brian Rohter, was New Seasons' founding president; the family's stake was sold to Endeavour Capital around 2009.

From 2001 to 2005, Brady was vice president of marketing and information services at Ecotrust, the Portland conservation-economy nonprofit, where she built sustainability-marketing initiatives. She has also been board chair and co-owner of Celilo Group Media, the company behind the Chinook Book — a coupon publication and mobile app promoting local, independent, and sustainable businesses that has distributed hundreds of millions of "green and local" coupons.

Brady moved into civic life in the late 2000s: Governor Ted Kulongoski appointed her to the Oregon Health Fund Board in 2007, and she served on bodies including the Oregon Health Policy Board and the Oregon Business Association board. In 2012 she ran for mayor of Portland, finishing third in the primary. Her LinkedIn now lists her whimsically as "Minister of Pluots" at Heart Island Farm, reflecting a shift toward farming and food. She describes 25-plus years of executive leadership across the natural-foods and software industries.

> Note: Beyond New Seasons Market and Celilo Group Media, no public, verified list of individual angel checks or specific check sizes was found; the "angel/seed" positioning above reflects her documented pattern of funding and co-owning early-stage natural-foods and sustainability ventures.

• Rooted in natural and organic foods, sustainable retail, and mission-driven consumer businesses — the sectors where she has operated and put her own capital (Nature's, New Seasons, Ecotrust, Chinook Book).
• Backs values-aligned "triple bottom line" ventures: her Celilo/Chinook Book work centered on "expanding the marketplace for sustainable products and services" and rewarding sustainable-lifestyle choices, a good proxy for the kinds of companies she favors.
• Comfortable with early/seed-stage founding capital, as demonstrated by seeding New Seasons Market from her dot-com proceeds rather than passively co-investing.
• Prioritizes companies that blend commercial viability with local, independent, and community/social impact — the model she credits herself with helping shape at New Seasons (organic and conventional products side by side, serving mainstream shoppers).