Gold was estimated to be the 16th richest woman in Great Britain, worth £470 million in 2019 according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

[6] She and her sister, Vanessa, grew up in a spacious three-storey house with a large garden and a swimming pool at Biggin Hill, Kent.

But, a chance invitation and visit to a Tupperware party at an East London flat in 1981 as she saw the potential of selling sexy lingerie and sex toys to women in the privacy of their own homes.

[10] Gold was appointed CEO of Ann Summers in 1987, transforming it into a multi-million pound business, with a sales force today comprising more than 7,500 women party organisers, 136 high street shops in the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands and generating an annual turnover of £117 million in 2008,[11] although sales and profits have fallen in recent years.

[15] A Woman's Courage was withdrawn from sale in November 2008 having been republished by Ebury on 7 February 2008 with three pages removed and re-titled Please Make It Stop.

She has also appeared on the ITV1 show Fortune – Million Pound Giveaway,[21] and in 2007, she was one of 12 well known individuals to serve on a jury in a fictional rape case in the BBC TV project The Verdict.

Guildford Crown Court heard Cox was trying to get the chef who prepared the food into trouble by lacing two bowls of asparagus soup with screenwash on 5 October 2010.

[31] In 2007, Gold was 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, one of Britain's Most Powerful Women by many publications including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Woman magazines, Business Communicator of the Year 2004,[32] and was included in Debrett's People of Today from 2005 for her contribution to British society.

Gold was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to entrepreneurship, women in business and social enterprise.