Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/84881
Leonard at the 2012 Boston Hot Pink Party.
York.... Leonard was right there. Evelyn took the lead—but he was the rock she stood on."
Even for an accomplished CEO like Leonard Lauder, Evelyn's achievements with BCRF would be a tough act to follow. But the team at BCRF greeted the news of Lauder's involvement with relief, if not outright joy. And who better than Leonard to grow BCRF? One of America's most successful CEOs, he took his family's cosmetics firm to its current status as a multibillion dollar global behemoth. (It had nearly $9 billion in net sales in the past fiscal year.) Already Lauder has expanded the BCRF board by bringing in such names as Tory Burch and Ed Brennan, the chairman of DFS Group. He's also defined a dual agenda for BCRF: "to embrace the new reality of can- cer research and expand the fundraising footprint."
The "new reality" of cancer research is how scientists are coming to see cancer as a genetic disease rather than a disease of the breast, colon, lung, or other organ. "Genetic aberrations are in a sense the hub of the wheel," says Myra J. Biblowit, president of BCRF. "Ulti- mately, solutions will have application to all of the spokes." She adds that what stands between disease and a cure today "is not technology or talent, but money. The intellectual capital is in place; the missing link is the financial resources." Eleven years ago BCRF awarded $8.5 million to support 50 researchers around the US; this year the group raised $53 million and is funding more than 190 researchers in 13 countries, according to Biblowit.
INSIGHT
Get involved: October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
What you can do: Over 90 cents of every dollar BCRF spends goes toward research and awareness programs.
Contact: bcrfcure.org
No matter how ambitious the goals for BCRF, Lauder, at 79, seems primed to meet them. His schedule hasn't varied much from when he was running the Lauder companies. "I get up at 6:30 AM every day, exer- cise, then sit down to a business breakfast by 7:30 or get to my office by 8," he says. His workdays are a tightly choreographed sequence of meetings, phone calls, power lunches, and more meetings until 6 or 7 PM. He travels regu- larly, and this past May he made it to The Boston Hot Pink Party at the InterContinental. In late October, he'll be here again for the opening of his antique post- card exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. But just before that, the date to note is October 19, when Tory Burch will
join BCRF's chairpersons and top
researchers for the Boston Hot Pink Luncheon & Symposium at the Boston Harbor Hotel.
As for Evelyn Lauder's hope that a cure for breast cancer will be found within our lifetime, no one knows the future, of course. But to reach that mile- stone, the money's on Leonard Lauder and BCRF to
get it done. BC
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