With an eye toward making its fragrance...

With an eye toward making its fragrance a household name in exotic lands, Giorgio Inc. of Beverly Hills has named Phyllis Y. Bishop, a veteran of several cosmetics companies, to the new post of senior vice president international.

In her position, she will oversee the company’s growing business in London, Paris, Switzerland and other European locales as well as supervise the entry of the traditional Giorgio fragrance and new products into Southeast Asia, Australia and South America.

“I enjoy the entrepreneurial side of things and missed the opportunity to build a business from scratch,” Bishop, 37, said in a telephone interview from New York.

Her most recent post, from which she retired last spring, was vice president and general manager at Clinique International, a division of Estee Lauder. Previously, Bishop was in charge of new product development at Almay Cosmetics, a division of International Playtex. While at Playtex, Bishop lived for three years in Paris and organized the purchase of Carita, a prestigious French cosmetics firm.

She later worked in new product development and marketing at Bristol-Myers and then Avon Products, which earlier this year purchased Giorgio for $165 million. Giorgio’s sales topped $100 million last year.

Bishop said Giorgio’s appeal as a “California life style type of company” will make the recognizable Beverly Hills fragrance easy to market. For now, Bishop plans to split her time between the company’s New York and London offices but eventually foresees a move to the West Coast once the new markets open up.

She’s just as happy to give it a little time, having experienced her first earthquake last week in Los Angeles. “I must thank Giorgio for arranging that earthquake for me,” she said. “It scared me to death.”