The Math and the Magic

A Conversation With Jane Lauder During Engage’s State of the Majority Summit

Feature article from The Engage Reader III

In her conversation with Jane Lauder, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Marketing and Chief Data Officer at Estée Lauder, White House Cabinet Secretary Evan Ryan asked a question on the minds of many in the room: “What does it mean to be the chief data officer at Estée Lauder?”

Ms. Lauder, the winner of Engage’s 2024 Corporate Women’s Award, shared her unique perspectives about women in leadership, how the emergence of AI is changing her industry, and the importance of the company’s legacy of corporate partnerships. 

A Legacy of Women’s Leadership

Estée Lauder, founded by Jane Lauder’s grandmother in 1946, has long been celebrated for its predominantly female leadership. Ms. Lauder shared, “Our company is 80% women, and over 59% of senior vice presidents and above are women. But that wasn’t always the case.” She told the audience, “When I started at the company 27 years ago, there weren’t as many women in leadership positions, and so I think we’ve made a very conscious effort to have women in leadership positions, to continue to grow that, to mentor them, to support them, and really make that part of who we are, and why you want to work at the Estée Lauder companies.”

This dedication has earned Estée Lauder the prestigious ranking of No. 2 on the Forbes list of World’s Top Companies for Women. Ms. Lauder explained, “It does take intentionality. It takes focus and commitment. When you think about all of the challenges that face women in the workforce, we all experience them. A lot of the time, women are the caregivers, both to children and to their parents. And so we’ve been very intentional in how we support women over the entire journey. Career advancement and training, what we can do in terms of education, and also in terms of all of the benefits that we can give women is a huge part of what we do.” 

Championing STEM Representation

Ms. Lauder emphasized Estée Lauder’s commitment to increasing the representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields: “You tend to see around 30% of employees in STEM at other companies are women. In our company, 60% of our engineers and scientists are women. For us, it’s about making sure that there is representation of women in those fields and driving that.”

The Glass Ceiling – Does It Exist at Estée Lauder?

As for the glass ceiling, Ms. Lauder said, “We absolutely see advancement, but it’s a work in progress. And you can never stop. Helping with mentorship and sponsorship is one of the ways that we have to be completely vigilant. And we keep driving. I’m incredibly proud that we achieved pay equity at Estée Lauder in 2023, but again, it takes vigilance.”

Harnessing the Power of AI Responsibly

As chief data officer, Ms. Lauder’s role involves merging “the math and the magic” — leveraging data to drive innovation and personalized experiences. She explained, “We’re not a tech company; we’re a company that uses technology to drive our enduring strength of high-quality, high-performance products and high-touch personalized experiences. We always use that as our North Star. As chief data offer, my job is to help our brands merge the math and the magic. When technology companies were coming up all over the place, bigger heritage companies were at a disadvantage. We couldn’t move as fast. But the script is flipped now that legacy companies with a lot of data are actually the ones that have competitive advantage. So now it’s taking all the data we have across all of our hundreds of millions of consumers; we have all of our ingredients, all of our formulas that we have tons of data on. Now, we can use it in completely new ways to create breakthrough innovation to create better personalization of products and communication.”

This prompted Secretary Ryan to ask, “And do you think we are using AI responsibly from a corporate standpoint?” Ms. Lauder replied, “We know to be responsible in AI, you also need it to be a combination of artificial intelligence and human intelligence. We look at representation, the diversity of the people in our company who are helping drive the AI, because we know that there are inherent biases that can happen if you don’t have people looking at it, testing it, making sure that it’s authentic.”

Partnering for Progress

Estée Lauder’s success in empowering women extends beyond the company’s internal initiatives. Ms. Lauder shared, “You can’t do it yourself. You need to do it in partnership. We’re partnered with the UN Women Foundation, World Economic Forum, and the UN Foundation actually helped us really frame our gender equity strategy.”  

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Ms. Lauder closed by sharing the story of a young girl she met in Brazil through a company sponsorship, who taught her the proverb, “I am because we are.” Ms. Lauder continued, “We all ‘are’ because of the people who came before us and how we all support each other. And that’s where private and public happen together.” 

Her words provided a fitting and inspiring mantra for the audience, comprised of colleagues representing the public, private, and non-profit sectors, all gathered to learn, share best practices, and engage together.