Leonard Lauder Net worth 2025

Leonard Lauder net worth and Biography

Leonard Lauder net worth 2025, Forbes, Wife, Houses, Foundation. Leonard Alan Lauder is an American billionaire, philanthropist, art collector. He and his brother, Ronald Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics fortune, founded by their parents, Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder.

Leonard Lauder Net worth 2025

Leonard Lauder Net worth	$23 billion
Date of birth	19 March 1933
Full name	Leonard Alan Lauder
Occupation	Businessman
Nationality	American

What is Leonard Lauder Net worth?

As of 2025, Leonard Lauder Net worth is valued at $23 billion making him one of the richest Americans according to Forbes estimates. He and his brother, Ronald Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics fortune, founded by their parents, Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder, in 1946.

 Having been its CEO until 1999, Lauder is the chairman emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. During his tenure as the CEO, the company went public at The New York Stock Exchange in 1996 and acquired several major cosmetics brands, including MAC Cosmetics, Aveda, Bobbi Brown, and La Mer.

Biography

Leonard Lauder is the elder son of Joseph and Estée Lauder and the elder brother of Ronald Lauder. His family is Jewish. He married Evelyn Hausner in July 1959. They had two sons: William, executive chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies, and Gary, managing director of Lauder Partners LLC.

 He is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and he also studied at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business before serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

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He formally joined Estée Lauder in 1958 when he was 25. He created the company’s first research and development laboratory in the mid-1990s and was responsible for the company acquiring brands like MAC, Bobbi Brown and Aveda. Under his leadership in the late 1980s, Estée Lauder opened its first store in Moscow with support from the Gosbank daughter the Moscow Narodny Bank Limited in London.

Lauder stepped down as CEO of Estée Lauder in 1999, but remains Chairman Emeritus of the company and is known around the company as “Chief Teaching Officer”.

Lauder gained notoriety in 2001 for creating the Lipstick index, a since discredited economic indicator, meant to reflect a proclivity to spend money on luxury items even in the face of crisis. For many years, he has resided on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. On January 1, 2015, Lauder married photographer Judy Ellis Glickman

Art collection

Lauder is a major art collector. he began by buying Art Deco postcards when he was six, but his particular focus, rather than on American artists, is on works by the Cubist masters Picasso, Braque, Gris, and Léger. He also collects Klimt. Much of his art comes from some of the world’s most celebrated collections, including those of Gertrude Stein, the Swiss banker Raoul La Roche, and the British art historian Douglas Cooper.

Lauder’s interest in postcards led him to be acquainted with one of the owners of the Gotham Book Mart, a Manhattan bookstore, and he sought to help the Gotham re-establish its presence in the city when the owner had sold its long-time building and needed a new space. Lauder bought a building at 16 East 46th Street along with a partner, letting the building’s storefront space to the Gotham.

Philanthropy

Lauder has long been a major benefactor of the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1971, he joined the museum’s acquisitions board and in 1977, by then president of his family’s business, he became a Whitney trustee. He became president in 1990 and has been chairman since 1994.

He has donated both money and many works of art to the Whitney, and is the museum’s most prolific fundraiser. His 2008 donation to it of $131 million is the largest in the museum’s history.

Lauder is co-founder and chairman of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of the Aspen Institute, chairman of The Aspen Institute International Committee, honorary chair of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and a member of the President’s Council of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital.

Leonard Lauder Net worth

As of 2025, Leonard Lauder Net worth is valued at $23 billion making him one of the richest Americans according to Forbes estimates. He and his brother, Ronald Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics fortune, founded by their parents, Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder, in 1946. Having been its CEO until 1999, Lauder is the chairman emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.

Source: Glusea