Estée Lauder Executive Chairman Says Good Leaders Have ‘Big Ears and a Little Mouth’

William P. Lauder might be a familiar name. His grandmother, Estée Lauder, founded her namesake brand in 1946 and grew it into one of the largest beauty companies today. Currently, the Estée Lauder Cos. have more than 45,000 employees worldwide and own over 20 brands, including Clinique, Tom Ford Beauty, La Mer, and Jo Malone.

Lauder, 64, is now the company’s executive chairman and chairman of the board of directors. He got his start in 1986 as the regional marketing director of Clinique U.S.A. in the New York metro area, helped launch the natural ingredients brand Origins, and eventually rose all the way to serve a stint as CEO of Estée Lauder in the late aughts. (It was recently announced his successor, longtime CEO Fabrizio Freda , will retire next summer amid slumping sales.)

In addition to his current position, Lauder teaches a class that he designed, “Decision-Making in the Leadership Chair,” at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for second-year MBA students.

Penta recently spoke to Lauder about his most memorable career moments, consumer preferences in the beauty industry, and his thoughts on leadership.

Penta : What is your role at Estée Lauder?

William P. Lauder: We have two great assets: brands and people, and my primary focus is to build great brands and to engage with our people. I travel and visit a lot of our markets and see how we can grow in that market. We have a presence in London, Paris, Korea, and many other international destinations. I host a town hall for Estée Lauder Cos. employees in many of our markets and talk to them about what makes us special and what our values are.

I also visit our factories and research and development facilities to do the same thing.

Can you share a career highlight since you joined 38 years ago?

I was one of the people who created and launched the Origins brand in 1990. The idea was to create a line that was backed by science but made with natural ingredients. We had a product called Peace of Mind to put on your temples and wrists to help relieve stress. We let people sample it in stores, and they loved it so much that they immediately came back to buy it. From there, the brand exploded, and we opened Origins stores. This was innovative at the time because single-brand stores didn’t exist.

Since I’ve moved into corporate management, my highlight is to be able to travel and show the Estée Lauder Cos. flag, as I like to call it, to our employees.

Have are consumer preferences with respect to luxury fragrances and beauty products changing?

post-Covid, there has been an explosion in interest in luxury fragrances, which is reflected in our brands like Jo Malone London, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, Tom Ford, and Kilian Paris.

Also, we have new, much younger consumers in their late teens to early 20s who are very into makeup and buy our brands like Too Faced. They are getting into skin care by buying products from our brands, including Clinique and the Ordinary. Teenage boys are very interested in fragrances and buy Kilian Paris and Tom Ford. Our hope is that this younger generation continues their loyalty to us, especially as they get older and have more disposable income.

You teach a leadership class at Wharton. In your opinion, what are the attributes of a successful leader?

First and foremost, the most effective leaders must be effective communicators. I believe in short, quick, and concise comments and statements that you repeat, like mantras. These mantras should be able to be passed down to the people they lead.

Also, you have to be a great teacher to be a great leader. You need to make time for an in-depth conversation with the people you lead to get your message across.

And it’s important to have big ears and a little mouth. Listen more and talk less.

Breast cancer research is a priority for Estée Lauder. Can you tell us more about this?

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) is a nonprofit that my mother, Evelyn, started more than 30 years ago. We, as a family, chose breast cancer because it’s the most common cancer that women are diagnosed with. One in eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 80% of our employees are women, so the statistic resonates.

The Estée Lauder Cos. Breast Cancer Campaign, our initiative that funds BCRF, is key to our company culture and a cause that brings us together meaningfully. In October, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we launch products across some of our brands, and proceeds from sales go toward the foundation. The campaign and the Estée Lauder Cos. Charitable Foundation have raised more than US$131 million to date for BCRF.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war, hoping prices will begin to moderate before November’s midterm elections.

The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices.

That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans.

Sixty-three per cent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist.

More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins.

U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales.

So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on.

Earlier this week, Trump said the current price of oil is “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really mentally deranged.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, the country would have more leverage to keep the strait closed and “make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon.”

Trump has taken steps in recent days to bring the war to an end. Late Tuesday, the president paused a plan to help guide trapped commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, expressing optimism that a deal could be reached with Iran to end the conflict.

Crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators on a one-page framework to restart negotiations aimed at ending the conflict and opening the strait.

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels.

“Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.”

Since the initial U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, Sununu has met in Washington with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, representatives from the Transportation Department and senior White House officials.

A White House official confirmed that Hassett and Sununu have discussed the effect of increased fuel prices on the airline industry. The official said the conversation touched on how the industry can mitigate the impact of high jet fuel prices on consumers.

“The president and his entire energy team anticipated these short-term disruptions to the global energy markets from Operation Epic Fury and had a plan prepared to mitigate these disruptions,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, pointing to the administration’s decision to waive a century-old shipping law in a bid to lower the cost of moving oil.

Rogers said the administration is working with industry representatives to “address their concerns, explore potential actions, and inform the president’s policy decisions.”

A Treasury Department spokesman pointed to Bessent’s recent comments on Fox News that the U.S. economy remains strong despite price increases. The spokesman said Treasury officials have met with airline executives, who have reaffirmed strong ticket bookings.

“We’re cognizant that this short-term move up in prices is affecting the American people, but I am also confident, on the other side of this, prices will come down very quickly,” Bessent told Fox News on Monday.

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Trump administration and Spirit failed to come to an agreement for the company to receive a financial lifeline of as much as $500 million from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has argued that the Iran war wasn’t the cause of Spirit’s demise, pointing to the company’s past financial struggles, as well as the Biden administration’s decision to challenge a merger with JetBlue.

Other budget airlines have also turned to the federal government for help since the U.S.-Israeli attack. A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

Estée Lauder Executive Chairman Says Good Leaders Have ‘Big Ears and a Little Mouth’

Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs.