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William Lauder

Executive Chairman, Estée Lauder Companies (The)

Search every verified William Lauder interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2025 podcast, William Lauder discussed his leadership philosophy, stating that leaders should "give your people permission to fail" because "permission to fail is permission to try." He said he does not believe it is a leader's role to give "very specific prescriptions to success," but rather to "inspire, set a goal of what we want to achieve, and give the teams the freedom to find the right way to get there." Lauder also emphasized learning from mistakes, comparing it to medical "M&M rounds" where professionals present cases to learn collectively. In a 2008 interview, Lauder described the company's size at the time as a family of 27 brands with approximately 27,000 employees and net sales of about $7.8 billion. He noted that the company evaluates success by consumer behavior, saying "the consumer is voting every single day with her wallet." Lauder also stated that research showed a "six to one difference in investment assets" between retaining a core consumer versus acquiring a new one.

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