She could mix it with shearers and wool growers and get away with her dog urinating on the leg of one of the world's highest paid stars.

Wool marketing pioneer Nan McDonald is now receiving accolades for being the driving force behind Australian wool's halcyon days.

Something her supporters believe should have come prior to her death earlier this year.

"She could handle any audience whether they be wool growers or a gaggle of textile manufacturers or buyers," explained long time friend and colleague, Joy Jobbins.

Ms Robbins was the advertising manager for the now defunct Australian Wool Board (AWB).

Board Chair Sir William Gunn hired Nan McDonald, a Queenslander who had started as a school teacher, before heading overseas to work in the fibre industry.

Southern New South Wales wool grower and author of the book 'Breaking the sheep's back Charles Massy, says at the time of her joining AWB, Ms McDonald was one of Australia's highest paid executives.

"She'd worked internationally at the cutting edge of fibres and marketing," he said.

"The new synthetic companies were using all sorts of new thinking.

"As a top marketeer she was also very artistic and imaginative which is what you would want."

Ms McDonald employed a large number of 'glamorous' women and set up a separate division 'decked out in outrageous colours' within the AWB headquarters in Melbourne.

"You can imagine how she went down when she hit a conservative head office in Bourke Street Melbourne for the Wool Board," said Mr Massy

"It was pretty much a public service fiefdom.

"They ended up calling it the boudoir of Bourke Street it was so far out of left field for them."

Part of that Melbourne life included Ms McDonald conducting much of her business from a table at Florentino's, which at the time, was one of the top restaurants in the Victorian capital.

Added to this, in her determination to promote wool as an international fabric, she would bring out high profile film stars.

Mr Massy remembers this form of promotion led to one of her two French Poodles, that went everywhere with her, disgracing itself.

Renowned U.S. comedian Danny Kaye, was in Melbourne for a photo shoot.

Unbeknownst to Ms McDonald, Kaye was not fond of dogs.

His dislike of pooches was probably heightened when 'one of the dogs lifted his leg on [Kaye's] designer trousers!'.

However, both Mr Massy and Mrs Jobbins say there was a very serious side to Ms McDonald, which helped in her determination to sell wool.

"The fellas would talk to her and she would explain how the textile industry worked, said Mrs Jobbins.

"She could explain to a grower why a shearer's shirt would cost a certain amount, compared to what the wool grower would get for the raw material."

Mr Massy believes Ms McDonald's skills would work today in having the fashion houses seeking the top end of Australian wool, although he believes she 'would be even to radical for our old statutory body today.'

"She was decades ahead of her time," he said.

"She could see that in terms of global fibre percentage, it was already shrinking down.

"It was only going to be a rare fibre in time and she could see that the future for Australian wool had to be the Australian brand and started to promote this."

Nan McDonald, who spent 10 years with the AWB, was 94 when she died.