Billionaire cosmetics inheritor Leonard Lauder — who performed a key function in reworking his mother and father’ Estee Lauder model into a world phenomenon — has died at age 92.
The corporate Sunday introduced the dying of its former CEO and chairman emeritus, a Manhattan native who was additionally famend for his contributions to New York Metropolis’s arts.
“Throughout his life, my father worked tirelessly to build and transform the beauty industry, pioneering many of the innovations, trends, and best practices that are foundational to the industry today,” stated his son William, govt chairman of The Estee Lauder Corporations, in a press launch.
“He was the most charitable man I have ever known, believing that art and education belonged to everyone, and championing the fight against diseases such as Alzheimer’s and breast cancer,” William stated.
“Above all, my father was a man who practiced kindness with everyone he met.”
Leonard, the Jewish son of firm founders Estee and Joseph Lauder, was born and raised on the Higher West Aspect and spent six many years on the agency, launching plenty of its high manufacturers, together with Clinique, Lab Collection and Aramis.
He graduated from the Bronx Excessive Faculty of Science and the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Faculty earlier than serving as a lieutenant within the Navy.
When he joined the household agency in 1958, it was only a handful of merchandise bought underneath a single model in US shops.
Right now, Estee Lauder, price $15.6 billion, is the third greatest cosmetics firm on the earth, after French big L’Oreal and the British-Dutch agency Unilever, in line with Girls’s Put on Every day.
Leonard was price an estimated $9.7 billion on the time of his dying, in line with Forbes.
In 1995, he took the corporate public, after saying that he wished it to be “the preeminent supplier of upmarket cosmetics in the world,” Girls’s Put on reported.
However regardless of astonishing monetary success, Leonard insisted that cash wasn’t his greatest motivator.
“Money doesn’t drive me. What drives me is to see that this great company continues its inexorable march to becoming the greatest company in the world. Not the largest, but the greatest,” he instructed one interviewer.
Leonard solely stepped down from the corporate board in August 2023, on the age of 90.
He was a supply of inspiration to many on the earth of vogue, together with legendary designer Ralph Lauren.
“Leonard’s life and mine have intersected for so many years, and during that time I have called on him many times for advice,” the designer stated in 2018.
“He was always there for me. He is a man of honor, a man of integrity, a man of great energy and passion, and what I’ve really learned and respected was his love and support of his family,” Lauren stated.
Exterior of labor, Leonard was identified for his love of the humanities.
In 2013, he donated his world-renowned assortment of Cubist artworks to the Met. The gathering featured 81 works by artists Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger and helped create a brand new wing of the museum.
“I wanted to transform the Met,” he stated of the opening of the Leonard A. Lauder Analysis Middle of Fashionable Artwork, including that his generosity was motivated by “my love of art and my love of New York.”
He was additionally concerned in funding one other of New York’s nice artwork establishments: the Whitney Museum of Fashionable American Artwork.
Leonard joined the museum’s acquisition board in 1971, turning into a trustee, then president in 1977 and eventually chairman in 1994.
As well as, he gifted the museum $131 million, on the time the most important endowment in its historical past.
Leonard was married to Evelyn Lauder, an Austrian-American businesswoman and socialite, from 1959 till her dying in 2011.
In 2015, he married photographer Judy Glickman.
He’s survived by his second spouse and his two sons, William and Gary, who’s the managing director of Lauder Companions LLC.
“His impact was enormous,” William added in his assertion. “He believed that workers have been the guts and soul of our firm, they usually adored him and moments spent with him.
“His warmth and thoughtfulness made an imprint on our company, the industry, and, of course, our family. Together with my family, The Estée Lauder Companies, and the countless people he touched, we celebrate his extraordinary life,” he stated.
