Eryca Freemantle Named Wabel Beauty Ambassador
Her career began as a makeup artist, long before beauty became the global business it is today. Over time, that creative foundation grew into something much broader, taking Eryca across beauty, business, leadership, personal transformation and the wider creative economy.
Today she is known as a Global Beauty Strategist and Transformational Advisor, with more than four decades of industry intelligence behind her. Alongside her work with companies, she also works with individuals through life coaching and transformational advisory, particularly people ready for change but not yet clear what their next chapter looks like.
For Eryca, those worlds are connected. Businesses are run by people. Brands are built by people. Growth often begins with the person at the centre becoming clearer, braver or more prepared to make a different decision.
Bringing the Beauty Industry Together
There is another part of Eryca’s work that has become just as important: bringing the industry together.
She is known for creating conversations, introductions and rooms where people who should know one another finally meet.
That can happen through her podcast, founders’ dinners, networking events, industry roundtables, private introductions or larger gatherings designed to bring different parts of the beauty ecosystem into the same conversation.
Eryca is not interested in networking for the sake of collecting names. She wants people to collaborate.
She wants manufacturers speaking to brands, founders meeting buyers, suppliers understanding what businesses need, established companies discovering new ideas and people from different markets finding ways to work together.
Her belief is simple: some of the biggest opportunities in beauty are already in the room. The right people simply have not met yet.
That ability to connect people, spot opportunity and understand what each side needs is now entering another chapter with Eryca’s appointment as a Wabel Ambassador.
She recently appeared as a keynote speaker at a Wabel event, sharing her perspective on the realities facing beauty businesses today. The ambassadorship feels like a natural extension of work she has been doing for years.
Why the Wabel Ambassadorship Matters
Eryca has never viewed beauty as only the product on the shelf. Behind every product sits an entire ecosystem: manufacturers, suppliers, ingredient companies, laboratories, packaging businesses, product developers, distributors, buyers, retailers, founders, investors and service providers.
To her, they are not separate worlds. They are part of one industry, and that industry becomes stronger when those worlds understand one another better.
For Wabel, Eryca’s appointment is particularly relevant because that philosophy closely reflects the way Wabel approaches business matchmaking. Wabel brings buyers, suppliers and industry professionals together through curated, pre-arranged conversations designed around genuine business needs rather than networking for networking’s sake.
Within Beauty & Personal Care, that means creating an environment where brands and manufacturers can meet relevant decision-makers while also gaining a clearer understanding of what buyers, retailers and markets actually expect from them.
Eryca brings another dimension to that process: more than four decades of experience understanding not only who should be connected, but also how businesses can prepare themselves to make the most of the opportunity when that connection happens.
Strategy Before Visibility
Over the years, Eryca has seen exceptional businesses struggle, not because the product was wrong, but because something around the business was not ready.
Sometimes the positioning was unclear. Sometimes the company was entering a market too quickly. Sometimes a founder was so focused on the product that the commercial side had been overlooked. Sometimes the person leading the business had outgrown the way they had always worked.
That is where Eryca’s strategic advisory work sits.
As a Global Beauty Strategist, she works with businesses to look honestly at where they are, where they want to go and what needs to happen in between. Often, her value lies in seeing something the people inside the business are too close to see.
A company might ask, “How do we enter this market?”
Eryca may first ask, “Why this market, and are you ready for it?”
A founder might ask, “How do I get in front of buyers?”
Her question may be, “What are those buyers going to see when they meet you?”
That change in the question can change the strategy.
Eryca believes businesses can become so focused on getting the opportunity that they forget to prepare for what happens when it arrives. Visibility matters, but being ready when you become visible matters even more.
That idea of readiness is particularly important within Wabel’s matchmaking model. A well-matched meeting can create the opportunity, but the business still needs a clear proposition, credible positioning and a strong understanding of what it can offer the buyer sitting across the table. In that sense, Eryca’s perspective strengthens the strategic thinking around the introductions Wabel creates.
The same is true internationally. Entering another country is about far more than finding a distributor or attending an exhibition. Every market has its own culture, expectations, relationships and ways of doing business. A company has to understand the room it is walking into.
Through her Brand & Business Growth Advisory, Eryca works with a selected number of companies over six or twelve months. The work can include positioning, growth strategy, market readiness, international expansion, buyer and distributor preparation, visibility, relationships, introductions and commercial opportunities.
There is no one formula. A manufacturer will have different needs from an emerging founder. A supplier may need something different from an established brand. A successful company may discover that its biggest challenge is not growth, but reinvention.
And sometimes the next transformation is personal rather than professional.
That is what makes Eryca’s relationship with Wabel particularly relevant. She brings a view of the whole ecosystem, together with the instinct to connect people who may be able to create something bigger together.
What Comes Next?
Today, Eryca’s work is becoming more international and more focused on creating conversations, collaborations and opportunities.
The Wabel ambassadorship is important, but it is not the whole story. It is another chapter in a career that began with a makeup brush and has evolved into more than 40 years of understanding beauty, business and people from the inside.
She has seen the industry change. She has changed with it. And she is still asking the question that sits at the heart of everything she does:
For Wabel, Eryca’s role adds an experienced industry voice to a Beauty & Personal Care community built around better conversations and stronger business connections. Her ability to challenge assumptions, identify opportunities and understand the needs on both sides of a relationship can help make those conversations more informed, more prepared and ultimately more valuable.
For manufacturers, suppliers, founders, brands and organisations across the beauty ecosystem, as well as individuals considering their own next chapter, Eryca is opening conversations around her strategic advisory and transformational work.
Learn more at www.erycafreemantle.com or connect with Eryca on LinkedIn.
The European market offers immense potential for success, with its vast and expanding consumer base. Start building valuable connections today by exploring the leading retailers and distributors in Europe, all of whom have a strong demand for products in the food, beverages, household, beauty, and personal care categories.