Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder was an American businesswoman who co-founded her eponymous cosmetics company with her husband, Joseph Lauter. She built it by selling in person — opening counters herself, giving away samples, and treating the face-to-face encounter as the whole of the business — and by 1998 she was the only woman on Time’s list of the twenty most influential business geniuses of the twentieth century. The company she started now owns brands from Clinique to La Mer.