Leonard, Evelyn, William, and Estée Lauder at the launch of Origins at Bergdorf Goodman, 1990.
Estée Lauder Chair William P. Lauder.
As I walk through Estée Lauder’s Manhattan headquarters with William P. Lauder, he points out the lobby walls: a soft robin’s-egg blue. “That was my grandmother’s favorite color,” he says, tapping the paint with the kind of affection most of us reserve for old family photos. “We refreshed the space last year, but her hue stays put. It reminds everyone why we’re here.” At 65, the grandson of Estée and eldest son of the late Leonard A. Lauder and Evelyn H. Lauder is the Chair of the Board, steering its directors and, by extension, the 25-brand constellation that makes up The Estée Lauder Companies.
But Lauder didn’t slip straight into the cosmetics business founded by his grandmother in her kitchen more than half a century ago. As a fresh-faced Wharton grad in 1983, he spent a short, eye-opening stint in Washington working for Treasury Secretary Donald Regan during the Ronald Reagan White House years. “I loved the adrenaline,” he laughs, “but I’d never met a truly happy lawyer—and that told me everything.”
Retail beckoned next. Macy’s executive-training program taught him “how to make the cash register ring,” and, more important, how people in different regions of the country shop.
“I moved to Texas to open Macy’s first store there,” he recalls, “and the culture shock was real. Going from the subway in New York to my air-conditioned car in Dallas was a whole new world. I’ll never forget melting my cassette case on the dashboard of my rental; it was a brutal Texan lesson in heat tolerance. But that’s where I learned what really drives retail.” It wasn’t long before his entrepreneurial spirit pushed him to explore the family business. William joined The Estée Lauder Companies in 1986 as a regional marketing director for Clinique and his observations from that time in Dallas bloomed into Origins, his first baby. The pitch sounded radical then: plants, essential-oil aromatics, mind-body benefits.
Lauder at Le Labo, an Estée Lauder Companies brand with a boutique at Bal Harbour Shops.
“We talked about sensory therapy 35 years ago; today it’s mainstream wellness,” he says, delighted at the foresight. “We spent six months arguing over the font on the packaging. We weren’t just selling skincare, we were selling the way you feel when you smell rosemary and lemon.” Origins also doubled as his “laboratory,” piloting shop-in-shops and brand-led freestanding stores years before direct-to- consumer was buzzworthy. It debuted inside Bergdorf Goodman and Nordstrom and was small enough to be nimble, yet bold enough to carve out a brand-new niche. “It was our playground,” Lauder explains. “A chance to test store designs, customer experiences, even how our teams collaborated.”
BALANCING HERITAGE WITH THE NEW
By 2004, Lauder had taken the helm as CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies and found himself straddling two worlds: honoring the classic elegance his grandmother insisted upon, and leading a digital transformation born of a generation that lived on Instagram and TikTok. “If you’re always looking back, you’ll trip over what’s in front of you,” he says. “We had to evolve formulas, rethink packaging, embrace e-commerce—without losing our soul.”
Scroll the company’s roster—MAC, La Mer, Le Labo, Tom Ford—and the common thread is freedom. “Our job isn’t to sand off the edges,” Lauder insists. “Le Labo wants a tiny 450-square-foot shop in Ginza with a perpetual line down the block? Let’s find the lease.”
One of his favorite stories involves Tom Ford. “Tom pitched me ‘Private Blend’ fragrances with a provocative name—F*cking Fabulous,” Lauder recalls with a grin. “Some partners balked. But I told them, ‘If it were anyone else, maybe not—but this is Tom Ford. Let’s let the brand be itself.’” The result? A cult favorite that still flies off the shelves.
Lauder’s newest experience can be found at Hacienda AltaGracia, an award-winning mountain resort high above San Isidro Valley in southern Costa Rica, where Estée Lauder just opened its inaugural Skin Longevity Institute. “Wellness travel is exploding,” he says, “and we want to be part of the memory a guest takes home, whether that’s a Re-Nutriv facial or a new ritual they practice every morning.” Expect personalized diagnostics, resident “Visiting Masters,” and, yes, the kind of Instagram-ready scenery that sells out retreats months in advance.
William receiving BCRF’s 2024 Spirit of Philanthropy Award, with his daughter, Danielle.
CARRYING ON THE PINK RIBBON
No conversation with William P. Lauder lasts long before the pink ribbon appears. His mother, Evelyn, co-founded the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) in 1993 after her own diagnosis; William now serves as co-chair. “Mom saw more women diagnosed with breast cancer than AIDS patients at the time,” he says softly. “She refused to watch them suffer in silence.” That was the genesis of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the Pink Ribbon Campaign. “We literally were giving away millions and millions of pink ribbons,” he says. “People representing our brands started gaining a sense of pride for what they stood for, because it wasn’t about just selling a lot of lipstick. It was about funding research in a different way than was traditionally being done.”
This passion for BCRF isn’t just about honoring his mother’s legacy. Lauder sees it as a way to continue the family’s broader mission. “We fund the best and brightest scientists and encourage collaboration,” he says. “It’s this community that really sets BCRF apart.
Researchers share their findings openly, which speeds up progress.” Thirty years ago, patients diagnosed with Stage One breast cancer had a 75 percent chance of survival; today, that survival rate is more than 93 percent. Lauder credits BCRF’s insistence on data-sharing among its 250-plus global investigators: “Momentum fuels funding, funding fuels breakthroughs—it’s a flywheel.”
While AI skin scanners and biotech actives headline beauty industry forecasts, Lauder thinks the real frontier is emotional. “Technology will personalize formulas,” he says, “but brands still have to make you feel something. That part—the spark my grandmother painted on these walls—doesn’t change.” Tracing the robin’s-egg paint one more time, he adds, heading toward the elevators, “Legacy isn’t a museum piece, it’s the launchpad.”
