Leonard Lauder, who for 17 years ran beauty behemoth Estée Lauder after his mother’s death, has died aged 92.

The American businessman was the eldest son of Estée Lauder, after whom the cosmetics brand she founded is named, and her husband Joseph.

Lauder, along with his much-younger brother Ronald, 81, inherited control of the company from their parents.

He was most recently estimated to be worth $32.3 billion, as of September 2021, making him at the time the 44th richest person in the world.

Lauder died on Saturday, the company said without specifying a cause of death.

Estée Lauder, whose parents were Hungarian Jewish immigrants, founded her namesake brand in New York City in 1946, and over the years, it grew steadily under her leadership.

At the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City on April 30, 2012, Leonard Lauder, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, and Shane Warne attended the Breast Cancer Foundation’s Hot Pink Party.

Honorary chair Kate Capshaw and gala co-chair Leonard Lauder pose for portrait at The Women’s Cancer Research Fund’s An Unforgettable Evening 2020

The Lauder family gathered in 1978, with members including Gary Lauder, Evelyn Lauder, Joseph Lauder, Estée Lauder, Aerin Lauder, William Lauder, Jane Lauder, Leonard Lauder, Ronald Lauder, and Jo Carole Lauder.

Lauder started at the company in 1958 when he was 25, after three years as a US Navy officer and graduating from Columbia University’s School of Business.

‘With brave American troops in harm’s way in Afghanistan and Iraq, my years of military service seem comparatively uneventful,’ he wrote in 2010 in a US Naval Institute newsletter.

‘Yet, for me, they were defining.’

Lauder eventually served as its chief executive of the company from 1982 to 1999 and chairman until 2009.

His mother always reminded him, ‘Comb your hair’, and introduced him first as her son, and only then noted his lofty position in the company.

‘My son always thought big. He worked every summer, every free moment,’ his mother wrote in her 1985 biography. 

The company grew from a family firm to a global giant under his leadership through a series of big acquisitions like MAC, Bobbi Brown and Aveda in 1980s and ’90s.

Lauder was the eldest son of Estée Lauder, after whom the cosmetics brand she founded is named, and her husband Joseph (pictured together)

Leonard Lauder, Estee Lauder, Evelyn Lauder, and Gary Lauder attend an event at the Lauder residence in New York City on October 30, 1985

Lauder married Judy Ellis-Glickman (left), the widow of a close friend, in 2015, Judith Glickman. They are pictured with Elizabeth Hurley (right) in 2017

He also started the company’s research and development labs and expanded its presence to Europe, Asia, and beyond.

Estée Lauder now has two dozen brands and $15 billion a year in sales. The company is public, but the Lauder family has 86 per cent of voting rights and owns 38 per cent of shares.

Lauder’s son William was chief executive in 2004 to 2009 and is still the chairman, and his younger son Gary replaced him on the board in 2023. 

It was at a luncheon Lauder hosted in NYC that Donald Trump met Soviet Ambassador to the United States Yuri Dubinin, and began his close ties to Moscow. 

Lauder was also a patron of the arts and donated enough to have the family name on wings of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

He also donated 78 cubist artworks by masters including Picasso, Georges Braque, and Juan Gris, valued at $1 billion, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013.

A private art hoarding in his home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was no less exquisite, as was his collection of 120,000 postcards going back to his childhood.

Those are expected to be donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Ronald Lauder, Jo Carole Lauder, Estee Lauder and Leonard Lauder

Lauder with his extended family, including sons William and Gary 

Leonard Lauder, who for 17 years ran beauty behemoth Estée Lauder after his mother’s death, has died aged 92

He has also donated huge sums to cancer research, sat on the boards of medical charities, and in 2022 donated $125 million to University of Pennsylvania to establish a tuition-free nurse practitioner program.

Lauder married Evelyn Hausner in 1959 and they stayed together until her death in 2011.

Just two years later he was engaged to Brooklyn Public Library chief executive Linda Johnson, but called off the wedding.

Instead he married Judy Ellis-Glickman, the widow of a close friend, in 2015.

Lauder is survived by his sons William and Gary and by his brother Ronald, who was US Ambassador to Austria in 1986 to 1987 and had a failed bid for NYC mayor in 1988.