Jacqueline Gold

Jacqueline has offered her support to the Girls! Make Your Mark campaign, saying:

“Women should be encouraged in business, and it’s a tragedy that there are still so few. If the UK had the same rates of female entrepreneurship as the US there would be 750,000 more female businesses, boosting productivity by up to £23 billion a year.

“I was very encouraged to hear about the Girls! Make Your Mark campaign which is providing a positive and practical way to encourage more young women to become entrepreneurs.”

Jacqueline heads an empire that is run by women, for women.

At the age of 19, after joining Ann Summers for work experience, Jacqueline saw the potential of selling sexy lingerie and sex toys to women in the privacy of their own homes.

Working her way through the ranks of Ann Summers Jacqueline was made Chief Executive in 1987, and quickly transformed Ann Summers into a multi-million pound concern.

Ann Summers now boasts a sales force of over 7,500 women as party organisers, has 134 high street stores in the UK, Ireland, and Channel Islands and one in Spain, and an annual turnover of £155 million.

As well as entering the Sunday Times Rich List in 2005, Ann Summers has been voted one of the ‘Top 100 Companies To Work For 2005’ by the DTI.

Jacqueline has been voted the second Most Powerful Woman in Retail by Retail Week, the Most Inspirational Businesswoman in the UK in a survey by Barclays Bank and handbag.com and one of Britain’s Most Powerful Women by many publications including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Woman magazines.

She has been the subject of several documentaries including ‘Back To The Floor’ (BBC2, 2001), ‘Ann Summers Uncovered’ (ITV1, 2003), ‘So What Do You Do All Day’ (BBC2, 2004), and co-presented the daytime business series ‘Mind Your Own Business’ (BBC1, 2005). She was a panelist on ‘Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway’ (ITV1, 2007), and one of the celebrity jurors on ‘The Verdict’ (BBC2, 2007).

Her autobiography ‘Good Vibrations’ was published in 1995, with a new book ‘A Woman’s Courage’ to be published April. She is a columnist for Retail Week, New Business and Kent Business.