He Turned His Family's Cosmetics Firm Into a Giant

Leonard A. Lauder, who helped transform his family's cosmetics business into a global powerhouse and went onto to become a major philanthropist, has died at age 92, reports the BBC. The son of company founders Estee and Joseph Lauder died at home in Manhattan on Saturday, per the New York Times. Lauder joined the company in 1958 after a stint in the Navy, served as chief executive from 1982 to 1999, and remained as chairman emeritus until his death. Lauder played a major role in turning Estee Lauder from a relatively modest business that operated solely in the US to a "multi-brand cosmetics giant" that operates throughout the world, per CNBC.

Among the signature brands he launched were Clinique, Aramis, and Lab Series. Beyond business, Lauder was a significant art collector and donor. In 2013, for example, he pledged nearly 80 Cubist works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a gift valued at $1 billion, the largest in MOMA history, per the Times. He also donated hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research for diseases such as Alzheimer's and breast cancer. At his death, Forbes pegged his net worth at about $10 billion. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)