Ronald S. Lauder To Retire from The Estée Lauder Companies’ Board of Directors

Ronald S. Lauder will retire from The Estée Lauder Companies’ Board of Directors.

Pursuant to the stockholders’ agreement among Lauder family members and the Company, Lauder has the right to designate two directors of the company. His daughter, Jane, will continue to serve on the board in her current position, and he has named his son-in-law Eric Zinterhofer, who is married to his daughter Aerin, to be his second designee.

In connection with Lauder’s retirement and his designation of Zinterhofer as his nominee, the board elected Zinterhofer effective immediately.

Lauder will remain Chairman of Clinique Laboratories, LLC.

“For more than 50 years, it has been an incredible honor and privilege to serve The Estée Lauder Companies,” said Lauder. “While I may be retiring from this position on the Board, I will continue to be committed to supporting this incredible company, the next generation of the Lauder family in leadership, and our family legacy. I am confident Eric’s experience and perspective will be an asset to the company’s long-term vision and plans to return to growth, while maintaining the values at the heart of our work.”

Zinterhofer joins the board with extensive financial, investing and global business experience, and is currently a founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners. He serves on the investment, operating and valuation committees, and is jointly responsible for overseeing the firm’s activities with the two other founding partners. He serves on the boards of several portfolio companies of Searchlight including Care Advantage, Hemisphere, Liberty Latin America and TelevisaUnivision, and serves as Chairman of the Board of Charter Communications.

Prior to co-founding Searchlight, he was a senior partner at Apollo Management in New York. Zinterhofer received a BA in both honors economics and European history, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Storied Career

Lauder joined the company in 1964 and has served in various capacities. He was a member of the board of directors from 1968 to 1986, from 1988 to July 2009 and from 2016 through his most recent retirement.

In addition to his activities with The Estée Lauder Companies, Lauder served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs from 1983 to 1986. From 1986 to 1987, he was US Ambassador to Austria. Lauder is an honorary chairman of the board of trustees of the Museum of Modern Art and President of the Neue Galerie. He is also chairman of the board of governors of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder and Co-Chairman of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.