The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty

In hismuch-anticipated memoir, The Company I Keep: My Life inBeauty, Chairman Emeritus and former CEO of The Estée LauderCompanies Leonard A. Lauder shares the business and life lessons he learned aswell as the adventures he had while helping transform the mom-and-pop businesshis mother founded in 1946 in the family kitchen into the beloved brand andultimately into the iconic global prestige beauty company it is today. In its infancy inthe 1940s and 50s, the company comprised a handful of products, sold under asingle brand in just a few prestigious department stores across the UnitedStates. Today, The Estée Lauder Companies constitutes one of the world’sleading manufacturers and marketers of prestige skin care, makeup, fragranceand hair care products. It comprises more than 25 brands, whose products aresold in over 150 countries and territories. This growth and success was led byLeonard A. Lauder, Estée Lauder’s oldest son, who envisioned and effected thisexpansion during a remarkable 60-year tenure, including leading the company asCEO and Chairman. In this captivatingpersonal account complete with great stories as only he can tell them, Mr.Lauder, now known as The Estée Lauder Companies’ “Chief Teaching Officer,”reflects on his childhood, growing up during the Great Depression, the vibrant decades ofthe post-World War II boom, and his work growing the company into the beautypowerhouse it is today. Mr. Lauder pays loving tribute to his motherEstée Lauder, its eponymous founder, and to the employees of the company, both past and present, while sharing insidestories about the company, including tales of cutthroat rivalry with CharlesRevson of Revlon and others. The book offers keen insights on honing ambition,leveraging success, learning from mistakes, and growing an internationalcompany in an age of economic turbulence, uncertainty, and fierce competition.