West Ham fan and daughter of David Gold, Jacqueline tells her story on a recent podcast.
The 61-year-old heads the Gold family business as CEO of AnnSummers, a position she has held for over thirty years.
Taking over AnnSummers in 1987, she is now one of the richest people in the UK, and is worth over £400 million with her dad and sister Vanessa.
Jacqueline explains how she had to overcome a lot of demons and obstacles in her life including abuse from her stepfather when she was a teenager.
Gold says she has suffered heightism as well as sexism in the boardroom, with men assuming that short women are not chief executives.
Jacqueline has warned that the pursuit of equality was “still not job done”.
She said that despite leading the lingerie company for 34 years, her position was still treated with scepticism by taller men in meetings.
“I’m only 5ft 1in, I looked younger than I was at 21, and my managing director was very tall,” Gold said.
“Although she was a woman, she was very tall. So there is this bias that if you’re short and female you can’t possibly be running the business. But I still have that now. There were very few businesswomen. So about being a woman in business, you’d meet somebody at a meeting, and they would assume that your colleague, if they were a man, was senior and they would start talking to them. There is a possibility that still goes on now.”
You can listen to the full inspirational interview below: