Ronald Lauder

He has been married to Jo Carole Knopf Lauder since 1967 and has two children, Aerin and Jane.

Ronald Steven Lauder was born on February 26, 1944, in New York City, New York, to Estee Lauder and Joseph Lauder, founders of Estee Lauder Companies. He was raised Jewish

He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science before joining the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from where he received a Bachelor’s degree in International Business.

He continued his higher education from the University of Paris and proceeded to earn a Certificate in International Business from the University of Brussels.

Ronald Lauder began his professional career working for his parents’ company, Estee Lauder Company, in 1964. Having watched his parents closely from a young age, he soon learned the basic principles of running a successful business.

He was interested in politics and political activism from an early age. In 1983, he was chosen to serve as the United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs, a position he held till 1986.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed him as the US ambassador to Austria. In this position he built strong diplomatic bonds between the two nations and personally repudiated Kurt Waldheim—a man with a Nazi past and the then Austrian president.

While serving in Austria, he began exploring his own Judeo-Hungarian roots and in the process, discovered that Jews were still living not only in Hungary, but throughout the Central and Eastern European region. His Austrian experiences heightened his own appreciation of his Jewish heritage and he resolved to revitalize Jewish life across central and Eastern Europe in communities that had been devastated by the Holocaust.

Ronald Lauder has been a Republican from a young age. In 1989, he decided to run for the position of mayor of New York City, but lost to Rudy Giuliani in the Republican primary.

Ronald Lauder is the founder of the Neue Galerie in New York which is a museum of early 20th German and Austrian art and design. Immediately after its opening, the gallery earned a reputation as New York’s leading gallery for Austrian and German Expressionist art. The museum houses famous paintings by the likes of Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele.