The ink isn’t yet dry on Elana Drell Szyfer’s business cards touting her new role at Ahava, that of Chief Executive Officer Worldwide. The responsibility kicked in September 1, and brings the executive’s focus on a much more global scale, which includes Israel, the company’s largest market; the U.S., its fastest growing market; and China, a new region.

In terms of Israel, Elana’s two main priorities focus on servicing both the tourist and local consumer markets. Regarding the tourist consumer, Ahava engages with them via its nine freestanding stores throughout Israel, and once these consumers are introduced to the brand’s Dead Sea ingredient story, they form a connection to the brand.

“To extend this connection, our objective is to focus on CRM [consumer relationship management] to build a better link between the consumer’s experience in Ahava stores and the consumer’s engagement with Ahava in their home market.”

For consumers within Israel, Ahava continues to build its prestige business with retailer Super-Pharm, focusing on facial skin care.

As for the U.S., the plan is to continue to focus on key retailers, which include Nordstrom and Ulta. In Elana’s previous role as CEO Ahava North America, she sought to build partnerships with retailers that understood Ahava’s uniqueness and potential. The goal then was to relaunch and reposition the brand. Looking back, Elana considers the task and outcome successful.

“What we’ve been able to do is double our growth in our U.S. retail accounts. Our space has stayed the same but we’re increasing the number of doors we’re carried in and also increasing per door productivity. We also accomplished a significant number of retail specific marketing programs and events, and we’ve put more selling assistants in doors. It’s a full-bodied approach that’s made a significant impact on our sales.”

Elana would not comment on retail sales, but industry sources estimate the brand generates more than $100 million globally.

Looking ahead, Elana expects to enter China in about a year’s time, so the brand is currently in a “scenario phase” regarding skin care’s most lucrative market.

Two markets in Europe are also on her radar, Italy and France. And, Russia and Germany are also priority markets, she said.

As for China, she’s keen on the trend of brands opening stores there to tell their story, which in turn drive sales to local department stores and other points of distribution.

“For sure in China, stores are becoming more and more popular with niche brands that are accessing department store distribution. It can be costly for those brands, but the strategy does really provide the consumer with the full brand experience. We actually have nine stores in Israel, each with a great store concept and a rich story to tell. So we’re thinking about freestanding stores in China. Not in the first year, but in the first couple of years.”

With headquarters in Israel (Elana visits once a month; it’s also where the company’s Board is based), New York and Germany, the company’s marketing and global marketing responsibilities were recently centralized to the U.S. from Israel. The objective was to help create a more product-focused ingredient story message.

Online is also a major focus for the brand.

“We have a big online business and we have our own Internet site.In the U.S. we also use some third party retailers, including dermstore.com and beauty.com. [And most recently Amazon’s Luxury Beauty site.] We are probably doing more than 30% of our business online.”

On the company’s recent decision to sell products on Amazon’s upscale beauty site, Elana said she couldn’t ignore the captive beauty audience it attracts.

“As a growing brand, we are always looking at ways to increase brand awareness and Amazon has an extremely large, captive consumer base. We believe that by partnering with Amazon in their new Luxury Beauty endeavor, we will have the opportunity to control our brand image online. Additionally, with Amazon’s unparalleled expertise in the ecommerce sector, we are anticipating an increase in overall brand awareness and the ability to reach and re-market to new customers,” she said.

And, she’s worked closely with the online retailer to identify authorized sellers of Ahava elsewhere on the site.

“As of October 8, all unauthorized resellers were removed, which has helped to dramatically reduce detrimental discounting on Ahava products.”

For spring 2014, Ahava is launching Age Perfecting Hand Cream SPF 15 Dark Spot Correction, as well as Active Moisture Gel Cream Advanced Skin Conditioner. “It provides a real rush of moisture.” Ahava is also building on its cult classic Mineral Botanic line of cream washes, body lotions and body butters with a new Tropical Pineapple & White Peach fragrance collection. A Velvet Cream Wash will sell for $23; Velvet Body Lotion for $26 and Rich Body Butter for $28.

The brand has also found that it doesn’t need a Hollywood star to promote its products, it already has a hero to focus on: The Dead Sea.Although the brand has had celebrity ambassadors in the past, celebrity deals are not on the agenda today.

“We went through an exercise in the past two years to focus on understanding the brand at its core and its DNA and we found Ahava is not a brand that needs to use a celebrity. We need to make the Dead Sea, as well as our ingredients, the story.”

Ahava’s bath and body sub-brand, Dead Sea Essentials, which up until now has been sold exclusively in Target, will now also be available in Duane Reade. Other retailers are being explored.