Believe it or not, there have been those who have doubted Leonard A. Lauder throughout his incredible career. Take a beauty buyer from the now-defunct Jordan Marsh department store, who replied with scorn, “You? The biggest?” when a younger Lauder, then the president of his family’s fledgling cosmetics firm, said his dream was to be number one. “Well, I did it,” he exulted from the podium at the Waldorf Astoria, where he became the first man ever to win a CEW Achiever Award. Lauder, a master speech-giver who rouses a room like no other, used the anecdote to deliver his main message: “In order to get there, you have to have a dream,” he told the 1,000-plus attendees. “Dream today about what you want to do tomorrow, and wherever you are, I’ll be cheering for you.”
