Evelyn H. Lauder is an articulate, outspoken dynamo. An astute businesswoman, skilled sportswoman and talented photographer, she is also an ardent activist and philanthropist, and a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. Born in Vienna, Austria, her parents rescued her and fled the Nazi annexation, first by living in Belgium for three months and then in England during the Blitz. She came to the United States as a youngster with her parents. Her mother woke her to see the Statue of Liberty as their ship was coming into the New York Harbor. Her remarkable life is an American success story.

Evelyn Lauder attended New York City public schools. As a freshman in college, she was introduced to Leonard Lauder, the son of Estée and Joseph Lauder, owners of a then little-known cosmetics start-up company. Shortly after her marriage to Leonard, now Chairman Emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies, Evelyn Lauder was persuaded to join the family business by her
mother-in-law, Mrs. Estée Lauder. Her teaching background with the New York City schools was an excellent springboard for one of her earliest jobs -– creating the Company’s initial training programs, and she still participates in training to this day. She enhanced the Estée Lauder range by adding many colors and treatment products that appealed to a wider range of complexions and skin types.

More than 50 years later, Evelyn Lauder remains a driving force in the success of The Estée Lauder Companies. In 1999 and 2007, she was featured in Crain’s New York Business magazine as one of New York’s 100 Most Influential Women in Business, and in 2008 she was nominated to the International Best Dressed List. Mrs. Lauder has held many different positions while contributing her invaluable insights about new fashion trends, consumers’ rapidly changing needs and new approaches to the development of innovative skin care, makeup and fragrance products. She also helped to create and to name the Clinique brand. In the last 25 years, she has focused on fragrance –- an interest shared with her famous mother-in-law and one that stems from her lifelong passion for flowers and gardening. As part of Mrs. Lauder’s travels as the Company’s “ambassador,” she delights in discovering the occasional exotic flower and using it to create a novel fragrance note. Her rare ability to visualize unique fragrance combinations or impressions drives the Company’s creative efforts in New York. There, as the Head of Fragrance Development Worldwide for The Estée Lauder Companies, she works at bringing these concepts to life in uniquely distinctive yet globally successful fragrances. Mrs. Lauder’s energies and enthusiasm reach outward, too. She is a leader in New York City’s cultural and philanthropic life. As a member of The Lauder Foundation, she was instrumental in
presenting a whole new concept of Adventure Playgrounds to the City of New York. From 1967 to 1973, The Lauder Foundation replaced outmoded facilities by building three creative play areas in Central Park that were designed to challenge children’s skills and stimulate their imaginations while placing a strong emphasis on safety and physical fitness.

Mrs. Lauder currently serves as Vice President of both The Lauder Foundation and The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and continues to contribute significantly to city parks through her active participation as a board member of the Central Park Conservancy and New Yorkers for Parks (formerly The Parks Council). Many other charities have also benefited from Mrs. Lauder’s thoughtful guidance and renowned generosity, including not-for-profits devoted to health and human services, education and inner-city schools, the environment, women’s causes and the arts. It is for her formidable role in the battle to defeat breast cancer that Evelyn Lauder is perhaps best known. In October 1992, she and Alexandra Penney, then editor of SELF magazine, developed the Pink Ribbon, which has become the worldwide symbol of breast health. Mrs. Lauder spearheaded the distribution of millions of Pink Ribbons and “Breast Self-Exam” instruction cards at Estée Lauder counters across the United States. That effort placed Breast Cancer Awareness at the public forefront. Seventeen years later, more than 110 million Pink Ribbons and millions of educational brochures and bookmarks have been given away around the world. The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign presently extends to more than 70 countries and represents the most significant and influential campaign ever instituted to educate women
worldwide about the need for early detection and treatment of breast cancer.

In 2000, Mrs. Lauder and The Estée Lauder Companies launched its annual Global Landmarks Illumination Initiative, in which historic landmarks are illuminated in pink lights during the month of October to focus global attention on this issue. Each year, more than 200 prominent landmarks around the world participate, including famous sites such as The Empire State Building, Niagara Falls, The Tower of London, The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy and Tokyo Tower in Japan. Mrs. Lauder’s leadership in the fight against breast cancer extends beyond the Company. In 1989, as a member of the Board of Overseers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, she
successfully initiated a fundraising drive that raised in excess of $18 million to establish the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, the first-ever breast and diagnostic center that opened in 1992 and has become a model for similar facilities around the world. The new and greatly enlarged Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center opened in September 2009 is three times the size of its predecessor; provides the most up-to-date breast cancer prevention, diagnosis and outpatient treatment services; and serves as a worldwide model for offering coordinated supportive services under one roof for one disease, a concept which
has been replicated in other institutions and for other diseases.


In 1993, Mrs. Lauder turned her attention to helping the world’s top medical and scientific researchers, and established The Breast Cancer Research Foundation® (BCRF) to address a crucial lack of funding for research. Under her chairmanship, the BCRF has grown to become the largest national organization dedicated exclusively to funding outstanding research relating to the causes, treatment and possible prevention of breast cancer. To date, BCRF has raised more than $290 million and supports 173 researchers across the United States and in Australia, Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, and throughout Europe. Mrs. Lauder was recognized for her many
contributions to breast cancer and the field of philanthropy in New York magazine’s “The Influentials” 2006 issue. As to her personal interests, wherever Evelyn Lauder goes, her IS30 Olympus camera goes, too. In the
course of her extensive travels, she has captured rainbows rising from the Pacific Ocean, sculptural snow scenes while cross-country skiing in Colorado, extraordinary patterns created by light reflecting on water and landscapes from Chile and Tuscany to the South of France. The stunning results have led to many one-woman exhibitions. The first, in 1992, was mounted at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York City. Mrs. Lauder’s art is represented in many public and private collections, including The
Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and leading medical facilities. In October 2002, Harry Abrams, Inc. published An Eye for Beauty, Mrs. Lauder’s second collection of photographs of the natural world. Her first book of photographs, also from Abrams, was The Seasons Observed, which was published in September 1994. Her Perceptions of Beauty photo exhibition was displayed internationally, including at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York City, Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, Duran Exposiciones de Arte in Madrid, and The Red Gate Gallery in Beijing. Her work has appeared in many publications, including Interview magazine, American Photo, House & Garden, O: The Oprah Magazine and Town & Country. Evelyn Lauder’s most recent photo exhibition, Beauté et Sérénité: Photographs by Evelyn H. Lauder, opened at the Galerie des Galeries, at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, on June 1, 2010. Known as well for her knowledge of food and entertaining, she was asked by Rodale Books to write a healthy cookbook, which was published in 2006. In Great Taste: Fresh, Simple Recipes for Eating and Living Well has been a great success. This delightful book of more than 125 healthy and delicious recipes is inspired by Mrs. Lauder’s own personal eating instincts as well as her years of experience working with doctors and nutritionists at leading hospitals. As with her previous two books, all royalties
from the sale of In Great Taste benefit The Breast Cancer Research Foundation®.

Evelyn Lauder has received numerous citations for her outstanding achievements. These include the following:

2008
Elected to the International Best Dressed List
2007
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2007 Partners in Progress Award for her lifetime commitment to breast cancer awareness
2006
Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement “FiFi” Award, The Fragrance Foundation
2005
Lifetime Community Achievement Award, The Junior League of Los Angeles, Inc.
2004
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Hunter College, New York, NY
2003
Inner Beauty Award, Cosmetic Executive Women (United States)
Lifetime Achievement Award, Cosmetic Executive Women (United Kingdom)
Brooke Astor Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of Science, Rockefeller University
Living Legend Award, American Society of Perfumers,
The Alice Paul Award
2002
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France
Gold Medal, The Spanish Institute
2001
Award for Excellence in Philanthropy, The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Ellis Island Medal of Honor, The National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations
Humanitarian Award, Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)
1999
Woman of the Year (shared), Glamour magazine
1996
Honorary Doctor of Humanities Degree, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA
1994
Woman Who Has Made A Difference, International Women’s Forum’s New York Forum
1993
Philanthropists of the Year Award (with Mr. Lauder), The Greater New York Chapter, National Society of Fund Raising Executives


Mr. and Mrs. Lauder have two sons. William is Executive Chairman of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. and Gary is Managing Director, Lauder Partners, LLC.

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