Leonard A. Lauder, W’54, an emeritus Penn trustee and a longtime member of the Penn community, died on June 14. He was 92.

Born in Manhattan, New York, Mr. Lauder graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1950. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School at Penn in 1954. He then served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy for three years and studied at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. Mr. Lauder joined his mother’s company, Estée Lauder, in 1958. He eventually became president and CEO, shaping Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., into one of the world’s leading cosmetics purveyors.

Mr. Lauder joined Penn’s Board of Trustees in 1977 and served on the board’s executive, nominating, and local, national & global engagement committees, and as chair of the external affairs committee. He was also a member of the School of Arts & Sciences Board of Advisors and was a perennial member of the Class of 1954 Gift Committee. In 1983, Mr. Lauder and his brother Ronald S. Lauder, W’65, founded the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies, housed in the Wharton School, in honor of their father, Joseph Lauder. Leonard Lauder was a longstanding member of the Lauder Institute’s board. 

The Lauder family, particularly Leonard Lauder, have been generous benefactors to Penn through the decades. Mr. Lauder and other family members have continued to support initiatives at the Lauder Institute like critical financial aid, support for faculty positions, the creation of the Lauder Global Knowledge Lab, and building renovations. They have also encouraged others to support the institute through the Lauder Family Challenge Fund. The family supported the creation of the Lauder College House in 2016 with the largest capital gift to the University at that time, and Mr. Lauder’s philanthropy supported many other initiatives across Penn’s schools and centers, including undergraduate financial aid, fellowships in the Wharton School, the Whitney-Lauder Fellowship at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Van Pelt Library, the Lauder Chair in International Relations, the Lauder Chair in Political Science, the Breast Cancer Research Fund at the Perelman School of Medicine, the Leonard A. Lauder Career Center, the Penn Museum, WXPN, the Penn Fund, and the Class of 1954 Reunion Fund. In 2022, Mr. Lauder made a $125 million gift to establish the Leonard A. Lauder Community Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Penn Nursing. This first-of-its-kind, tuition-free program recruits and prepares a diverse cadre of expert nurse practitioners to provide primary care to individuals and families in underserved communities across the U.S. 

Penn honored Mr. Lauder in 1996 with the Alumni Award of Merit, the highest award given by Penn Alumni in recognition of outstanding service to the University. In 2003, he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Medal for Distinguished Achievement, given “to those individuals whose performance is in keeping with the highest goals of the University and who have contributed to the world through innovative acts of scholarship, scientific discovery, artistic creativity or societal leadership.” With his brother, Mr. Lauder received the Wharton School’s Dean’s Medal in 2006, in recognition of his commitment to global business. For his steadfast leadership and support, as well as his love of the arts, Mr. Lauder was honored at the Institute of Contemporary Art’s 50th Anniversary Gala in 2013.

Mr. Lauder was chair emeritus of the Aspen Institute, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of Ronald Reagan’s Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations. He spent 40 years building a collection of Cubist paintings, which he donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2013. He was also a generous benefactor of the National Gallery and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He was a co-founder and chairman of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and a founder of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. 

He is survived by his wife, Judith Glickman; his sons, William, W’83, and Gary, C’84, W’84 (Laura); his brother, Ronald, W’65 (Jo Carole); his grandchildren, Rachel, C’13, Danielle, Djuna-Bear, Joshua, C’19, and Eliana; two great-grandsons; his nieces, Aerin, C’92, and Jane; and stepchildren and step-grandchildren.

To learn more about Mr. Lauder, read a tribute in The New York Times.