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Celebrating Innovation in Honor of Women’s History Month: A Q&A With Jane Lauder

Company Feature

This Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) is celebrating creators, boundary breakers, changemakers, and innovators—the unstoppable women in beauty and beyond.

Throughout March, ELC will be spotlighting employees across its channels and honoring the ingenuity and determination that drives women to innovate while celebrating the infinite possibilities that lie ahead. Today, to kick off Women’s History Month, Jane Lauder, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Marketing & Chief Data Officer, shares her thoughts on ELC’s theme for Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, “Advancing Possibilities for Women: Celebrating Innovation in Beauty and Beyond,” and the role of women and innovation at ELC.

 
  1. What comes to mind for you as you reflect on Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day?

    Our founder, and my grandmother, Estée Lauder, started our company at her kitchen table over 75 years ago as a one-woman research and development department, cooking creams as Chief Scientist and daring to pursue her ambition. As Chief Data Officer, she relentlessly gathered information about her consumers, and leveraged those learnings to meet her customers where they were. As Chief Marketing Officer, she built a brand centered on the power of women’s voices, and what we can accomplish with grit, perseverance, and an undeterrable growth mindset.

    Estée infused the spirit of innovation into our company’s DNA and laid the foundation for what we continue to do today—advance possibilities for women.

  2. The ELC theme for Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day is “Advancing Possibilities for Women: Celebrating Innovation in Beauty and Beyond.” What does “celebrating innovation” mean to you in this context?

    Today the consumer-driven formulations, technology-enabled precision, and unrivaled quality of our products are fueled by our people — nearly 80% of whom are women. At ELC, we recognize that women have a long history of finding new and creative ways to solve challenges, to persist, and to thrive.

    We see innovation in the ELC scientists and technical professionals (over 60% of whom are women) who create our high-quality products and high-touch experiences for global consumers; in the mothers and caregivers who shoulder responsibilities at work and at home; and in the countless employees who bring new ideas to life with relentless creativity. We also see innovation in the women who help build a sense of community and belonging through our employee resource groups; in the mentors and sponsors supporting women to advance professionally and personally; and in our partners who drive positive impact for women and girls in communities around the world. 

    I am proud to say that at ELC we are creating a place where women drive innovation across the spectrum, and women in STEM thrive. My personal goal is for ELC to be an employer of choice for women pursuing careers in STEM.

  3. What is The Estée Lauder Companies’ commitment to gender equity?

    Since 2021, we have tracked progress on our Gender Equality Strategy in 3 areas of focus—Opportunity, Leadership, and Health and Education.

    We recognize that globally women and girls face systemic barriers to advancement, and we strive to improve and expand access to education, increase opportunities and mentorship for women in their careers, and develop women leadership at every level.

    I’m so proud of where we are today and the progress we’ve made thus far on our strategy. But the work doesn’t stop here. I personally am committed to building upon ELC’s legacy of advancing women, with a particular focus on women in STEM. As a company, ELC is focused on putting technology front and center to fuel our enduring strengths of high-quality products, high-touch consumer experiences, and brand-building distribution, so much of which is powered by women in STEM.

  4. Why isn’t beauty seen as a STEM field?

    When you ask someone to think of a list of STEM jobs, many will immediately come to mind, but a job in beauty is rarely thought of in that way. However, it’s a notion that we’re actively working to promote, because beauty is very much driven by STEM, and at ELC it’s being powered by women in STEM who are leading innovation of all kinds.

    It’s easy for consumers to forget that the ELC products they use every day are created by women in STEM — from the formulation itself to the packaging, digital experience of purchasing a product, and everything in between.

    We’re proud that women lead in STEM across our global brands, regions, and functions. More than 60% of ELC scientists, engineers, and technical professionals—the innovative creators behind our products—are women; all of our R&D Innovation Centers globally are led by women. As a company built on and powered by women-led innovation, we understand the incredible contributions of women in STEM to our company, our industry, and our world.

    That’s why, at ELC, we are committed to inspiring a new generation of women in STEM, and showing girls and young women how they can turn their passion for STEM into a career in beauty and cosmetics. This is especially important given that women make up only 34% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and the gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.

    We continue our investment in women and girls by expanding access to STEM education, increasing mentorship for women in tech-focused careers and offering a network within our Women’s Leadership Network Employee Resource Group (WLN) for women in supply chain, R&D and technology. We have also launched a new Presidential Associate track for Data & Analytics, to strengthen our STEM talent pipeline.

  5. What is the connection between creativity and STEM?

    I often say to my team that our task is to leverage data and technology to pair a digital brain with our company’s creative heart. My approach is to combine the math and the magic.

    Today, we touch hundreds of consumers every year. And just as the size of our consumer base has expanded, so too has the set of tools we use to fulfill their desires. Our predominantly-women engineers, scientists and technologists have helped to develop the tools to deliver a personal touch to our consumers, and data is the essential ingredient here.

    The power to harness, analyze and act on over 75 years of data (the math) and deliver the right creative and message, via the right channel, at the right time (the magic) is the foundation to everything we do and ensures our consumers continue to receive the high-touch personalized experiences ELC is known for.

To hear more from ELC throughout Women’s History Month, follow ELC on LinkedInInstagramTikTok, and Facebook

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