Kym Gold - Gold Standard: How to Rock the World and Run an Empire

Copyright 2015 by Kym Gold

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Laura Klynstra

Cover photo credit: Russell Baer

ISBN: 978-1-63450-128-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0151-9

Printed in the United States of America

I want to dedicate this book to my mom, Nikki. Without her, I wouldnt be me.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T oday, with so many women becoming responsible for being the breadwinner in the family, it is even more imperative that there be equality between the sexes in business. And yet, speaking as a woman, were not there yet. As the only woman on a board of directors of an IPO (Initial Public Offering) company I helped to create, this fact has been made crystal clear to me.

My intent with this book is to provide insights into what happened to me in my life that could be useful to other women who either want to create a company and take it public or shatter the proverbial glass ceiling. This story is also for those of you who need a little inspiration from a woman rather than a man in the upper echelon of my industry, the fashion business.

I share the raw and honest truths of what my world has been like, from struggles to find my own individuality having been born a triplet, to what it is to build an international brand, to the thrill and defeat of creating and then losing companies. In this book, I share how that looked as a mother and a wife, a balance struggle that many women endure.

There are invaluable lessons I learned in being inducted into the richest one percent of Americans. It took a lot of hard work and heartbreak. People may think that money fixes everything. It does not. In fact, having money adds another layer in life to manage, something I continue to learn how to maneuver through on a daily basis.

I am a creative artist and I love what I do. So when people ask me why I still work, my answer has always been, Why wouldnt I? Does a painter stop painting?

To create is to live, and I have so much more living to doespecially as I keep rediscovering what I can contribute as a woman in this man-centric business and in life. If I can pass on the wisdom Ive accumulated to make it easier or better for the next army of talented, passionate women, then Ive done my job.

One

THE FABRIC

I t has been said who you are today has everything to do with your childhood. I knew, for me, that this theory was relevant. Throughout my life I had fiercely searched to find my own voice, to stand out and not be dismissed, and to take credit when due. Those were themes that ran through my life as one of an identical three.

When I was born, doctors didnt have ultrasound yet, so my unsuspecting mom didnt know she was pregnant with three girls. Identical triplets. She had already had my brother Scott.

She found out seven months in, when they did an x-ray. She was busy with getting her dress back over her engorged belly when the doctor returned with her x-ray in hand.

What ?! she and my dad cried in disbelief.

Two weeks later, we were fighting to get out. We were seven weeks early. Doctors had found that the later you are in the birthing order, the less air you have to breathe before being delivered. This caused concern at the possibility of brain damage for the later siblings, so they only did C-sections for multiple births after us. I was the last one out. Imagine that.

When no one expects triplets, you come out of your moms belly and enter the world as a burden. The idea of having an instant family of six (in our case), when they thought it was going to be a manageable family of four, is a lot for a parent to wrap her head around. The cute outfit they bought for the one bundle of joy needs to be tripled. The time. The energy. The attention. All tripled. It becomes a completely different conversation... in triplicate.

My mom and dad had spent considerable time deciding on the name of their soon-to-be-born baby. In a moments notice, they were expected to come up with two more first and middle names. We were given the names Michelle Lynn, Traci Lee, and Kymberly Jill.

There was a study done in 1983 that showed a mother of six-month-old triplets expended approximately 197 hours per week on care for those babies, when there are actually only 168 hours in week. Clearly they had help, but it still wasnt easy.

It could have been worse. We were quadruplets originally, but my mom miscarried a month before our birth, making us triplets in the end. Monozygotic triplets, which means we were identical from the result of a single egg splitting after conception. We were literally one in a million.

Michelle and Traci were born mirrored, meaning that their hair falls in opposite directions to each other and their fingerprints are mirrored, with one being right-handed while the other left-handed. I was probably a mirror too, with the fourth baby that was miscarried.

The moment we greedily sucked up our first breath of air in the world, the three of us were immediately separated and thrust inside incubators. We spent most of our first seven weeks of life in a plastic dome, with tubes and wires protruding from our impossibly small bodies, barely having entered this world of challenges.

I can only imagine how it must have felt when my mom and dad saw our tiny bodies reach for the nurses instead of them. They watched helplessly and hoped their new beautiful babies would survive.

We were each born six minutes apart.

My theory is that the last one out is the eldest, because you are the first one conceived. If you are the first conceived, then you are the one furthest in the back.

And truly, I have always felt as though I am the oldest. I am the one who did everything firstthe first to have kids, get married, and start a career.

My parents went from one to suddenly four kids in a matter of eighteen minutes. Who wants four kids under the age of two all at once? Well, as it turned out, my father didnt. He left my mom a year later, after having had an affair with another woman. Traci, Michelle, and I were one-year-olds, and my brother was two-and-a-half.

Our parents were not happy in their marriage. There was a time before the divorce when our mom showed up at dads office in her robe. She paraded us through his law office, past the partners, secretaries, and associates, and plunked us before dad, saying, Here! Theyre yours too. And she marched out.