Ann Summers CEO: The Heartbreaking Story Of One Of Britain's Richest Women! Jacqueline Gold CBE

Jacqueline’s parents split when she was 12, and her mother’s boyfriend sexually abused her from 12–15 while her mother remained overprotective in every other way. Feeling trapped and unsupported, she fixated on financial independence as her escape route and later channeled that pain into a mission to empower women, especially around sex and autonomy.

Jacqueline repeatedly stresses she did not want to see herself as a “victim.” Confronting her abuser at 15, she framed it in a way that minimized his loss of face so he would stop without lashing out. Looking back, she recognizes the mix of bravery and people‑pleasing, but emphasizes that extracting positives from trauma is how she has survived continued adversity, including losing her son, being stalked, and battling cancer.

Jacqueline describes being an extremely shy, overprotected child who wasn’t allowed to play with other kids. Yet she held a 500‑person sales conference in her early 20s and eventually became a high‑profile CEO. Her formula: courage comes first, confidence follows. When you care deeply about a mission, stepping on stage or into difficult rooms becomes possible, and each risk stretches your comfort zone.

Ann Summers was originally a male‑oriented sex‑shop chain. After seeing a clothes party in a council flat, Jacqueline realized women wanted a private, safe space to explore sex products. She created women‑only “Ann Summers parties,” recruited local hosts, and used localized ads to self‑propagate the model. This customer‑driven approach, born from naivety and listening rather than convention, became the brand’s engine and later fed into their store strategy.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, later progressing to stage 4, Jacqueline consciously chose to believe she would be the 0.1% who defied the odds, just as she had been the 0.1% for negative recurrence. She approached treatment like a strategic problem, insisting on a plan and repeating affirmations about clear scans. She credits this mindset with helping her reach “excellent remission” and applies the same approach in business crises like the pandemic shutdowns.

As a young, petite woman CEO, Jacqueline was routinely ignored in meetings in favor of male colleagues, asked to prove she belonged in first‑class train carriages, and told her women‑only parties would fail because “women aren’t even interested in sex.” She highlights how much bias is invisible—embedded in who gets spoken to, believed, or funded—and argues that, despite progress, it is “not job done” for gender equality.

When Boris Johnson announced retail closures with no clear support, Jacqueline describes feeling “heartbroken” at having to shut all Ann Summers stores. She emphasizes how constant communication, transparency about hard decisions, and respect for people helped carry staff through. Simultaneously, they rapidly scaled their sales ambassador network from 4,000 to 20,000 and pivoted creatively on social media (famously selling out of novelty ‘penis pasta’)—examples of constraint-driven innovation.