THE COMPANY
I KEEP
My Life in Beauty
About the Author
Leonard Lauder was born in 1933 in New York City, where he grew up and helped his mother as she founded what would become The Estée Lauder Companies business out of the family’s kitchen.
After proudly serving in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant and later a Navy reservist, Mr. Lauder officially joined the company in 1958. He focused on growing the business and building the company’s research and development laboratory. Proving himself to be an industry pioneer and true business innovator, Mr. Lauder served as President from 1972 to 1995, CEO from 1982 to 1999, Chairman from 1995 to 2009, and, finally, as Chairman Emeritus until his passing in 2025. In nearly six decades of leadership, he transformed the company from a small brand with eight products sold in one country, to a multi-brand, beloved global icon.
Mr. Lauder was married to Evelyn H. Lauder (founder, Breast Cancer Research Foundation [BCRF]) from 1959 until she passed away in 2011. They had two sons, William (Chair of the Board, The Estée Lauder Companies) and Gary (Managing Director, Lauder Partners LLC); five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
On January 1, 2015, Mr. Lauder married Judy Ellis Glickman, a philanthropist and internationally recognized photographer whose work is represented in more than 300 public and private collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Whitney, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the United States Holocaust Museum.
While Mr. Lauder served many roles during his tenure at the company, he was especially proud of being considered the company’s “Chief Teaching Officer” – believing that a company’s wealth is its people.
Art & Community Involvement
In addition to his work at The Estée Lauder Companies, Mr. Lauder dedicated his life to making the world a better place through his passion and generosity to education, art, foreign policy, and philanthropy.
Mr. Lauder served as Chairman Emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Believing that art should be shared with the world, he was one of the museum’s most significant benefactors, giving a milestone gift to its endowment in 2008 and helping the Whitney acquire 948 works of art, 760 of which he gifted personally. In 2016, Mr. Lauder was presented with the inaugural Whitney Collection Award as the museum announced that the Whitney’s new home in the Meatpacking District was being named the Leonard A. Lauder Building in his honor.
He also made significant contributions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including a gift of 78 Cubist paintings, drawings, and sculptures. In concert with his gift of artwork, he helped establish the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, a center dedicated exclusively to promoting modern art within an encyclopedic museum.
Mr. Lauder vowed to fight for a cure to Alzheimer’s disease, and with his brother Ronald S. Lauder, was the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. After the passing of his wife, Evelyn, in 2011, he worked to carry on her legacy in the fight against breast cancer as honorary chairman of BCRF and as a significant supporter of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. A lifelong learner and foreign policy advocate, he was a Charter Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, a Trustee of The Aspen Institute, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and also served on the White House Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations.
Mr. Lauder’s passion for education resulted in his support for many academic institutions. He was an emeritus trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and a founding member of the board of governors of its Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies, along with his brother, Ronald. When the pandemic in 2020 magnified the nation’s acute shortage of quality primary care in underserved communities, Mr. Lauder worked with the University of Pennsylvania to create a tuition-free program to educate nurse practitioners. His $125 million donation, the largest gift ever to an American nursing school, made possible the Leonard A. Lauder Community Care Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Recognition
Among many honors, Mr. Lauder received the French Légion d’Honneur, the “Lone Sailor” Award, given by the United States Navy Supply Corps Foundation, the Lincoln Center Corporate Fund’s Women’s Leadership Award, and the Palazzo Strozzi Renaissance Man of the Year Award.
The Lauder family was honored with the esteemed 2011 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in recognition of its long-standing commitment to philanthropy and public service.
In 2014, Mr. Lauder was named a Living Landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
Mr. Lauder and Ms. Glickman Lauder received the Gordon Parks Foundation Patron of the Arts Award in 2016.
In 2020, he was inducted into the Retail Hall of Fame by the World Retail Congress.
Order Now
