LOS ANGELES — Freeman Beauty announced the appointment of Bill George as the company’s new chief executive officer. Following the success of April’s first National Face Mask Month, George will join the company immediately following his previous post at Markwins Beauty Brands. Supporting Freeman Beauty’s full portfolio of brands, he will focus on continuing to expand the company’s high growth in the mask category, leveraging his background in global cosmetics and personal care to continue to drive innovation and success.

Bill George

With over 25 years of experience in the beauty space, George comes to Freeman Beauty with expertise managing a large portfolio of top ten mass-market beauty brands. Known for driving organic growth across six continents as well as leading corporate acquisitions and integration, he is widely recognized to possess a firm handle on major market trends along with the ability to inject excitement in brands by delivering high-quality innovations, supply chain ingenuity and consumer engagement.  A key to his success is strong teamwork and partnerships, earning numerous industry awards for Supplier of the Year and “Best Of” categories.

“I am honored and privileged to join Freeman Beauty,” said George.  “I have admired the company’s position in the market for quite some time and love where the brand stands today. I look to build on the company’s rich heritage and continue to find the best partners to succeed in these high growth segments.”

In his new role, he will work closely with Yellow Wood Partners, helping fuel their growth plans for Freeman Beauty brands, while leveraging their insights to further expand the business.

Dana Schmaltz, partner at Yellow Wood expressed, “The Yellow Wood team is excited to have the opportunity to work with Bill George as the new CEO of Freeman Beauty.  We have known Bill for a number of years and watched him build many successful brands. Adding Bill’s skill set to the great franchise we have at Freeman as the #1 Face Mask brand in the US will continue to accelerate our growth in this category, as well as other categories that we may enter through acquisitions and line extensions.   We look forward to building another successful consumer platform business around Bill.”

Concurrently, Jon Achenbaum, announced his retirement from Freeman Beauty.  Achenbaum, who joined the company in 2015, led Freeman Beauty through a period of significant growth and oversaw the sale of the business to Yellow Wood partners in August 2017. Yellow Wood is proud of the accomplishments the business achieved under Jon’s leadership and wish him well in his future endeavors.