Overview

• Leonard Lauder died on June 14 at age 92, surrounded by family, the Estée Lauder Companies announced.
• He served as president (1972–1995), CEO (1982–1999) and chairman emeritus until 2023, guiding acquisitions of Clinique, MAC Cosmetics, Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Jo Malone and La Mer.
• He coined the “Lipstick Index” to track countercyclical consumer spending and drove the company’s expansion into more than 150 markets.
• His philanthropy spanned art and medicine, most notably gifting a 78-piece Cubist collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and co-founding the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.
• At his passing, his personal net worth was estimated at $15.6 billion, reflecting decades of industry leadership and strategic investments.