On the 15th, the Estee Lauder issued a statement saying Honorary Chairman Lauder died the day before by his family, Bloomberg reported.
Lauder, the son of Estee Lauder’s founder, joined the company in 1958 and became a global giant. He grew the company by launching cosmetics brands such as Clinique, Aveda, Mac Cosmetics, Tom Ford Beauty, Bobi Brown, Jo Malone London, and La Mer, or leading mergers and acquisitions.
When he joined, the company’s annual sales were around $800,000, but when he stepped down as chairman in 2009, it reached $7.3 billion. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index released in March 2023, Lauder had a net worth of $26.2 billion, making him the richest man in New York. Lauder made a name for himself by creating an economic indicator called the Lipstick Index that increased purchases of cosmetics, especially lipsticks, even during the 2001 economic recession. In fact, lipstick sales in the U.S. rose 11% in the fall of 2001, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place, and overall sales of cosmetics reportedly increased 25% during the 1929 Great Depression.
Lauder has engaged in a wide range of philanthropic activities, including the establishment of the Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment Development Foundation. He was also well versed in art, and in 2013, he donated 78 works by Pablo Picasso and others that he had collected to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, making headlines. The value of the art he donated was $1 billion, the largest ever.
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
