Ms Gold's family said it was with an unimaginable sadness that Ann Summers confirms our amazing executive chair Jacqueline Gold CBE passed away yesterday evening with her husband Dan, daughter Scarlett, sister Vanessa and brother-in- law Nick by her side.
An activist for women in business and championed female entrepreneurs with the ambition to improve the working environment for women, the statement said.
Her death came just two months after her father, David Gold, who was joint-chairman of West Ham United, died at the age of 86.
Her sister, Vanessa, who is chief executive at Ann Summers, said she was a trailblazer, a visionary and the most incredible woman, all of which makes this news so hard to bear. The business was bought by Ms Gold's father and his brother Ralph in 1971, and the first Ann Summers shop opened in 1971.
In 2015 she told the BBC that when she first proposed this approach to the company's all-male directors, it wasn't well received.
One board member said 'this isn't going to work, women aren't interested in sex', she said.
The increase in sales that her approach generated resulted in the expansion of Ann Summers' High Street stores. It currently has 88 in the UK and Ireland.
The stores were brightly lit and targeted at women, with the aim of distinguishing them from the traditional image of backstreet sex shops.
She said when I joined Ann Summers its customer profile was only 10% women. Today it remains 100% women going to our parties and 80% women to our stores.
In 2018, she said there were very few female role models, and she found it disappointing that the situation had not changed.