Our team of experts has experienced, witnessed and learned from many years in eCommerce, supporting many dozens of large and small online businesses to succeed, including:

• Helping online retailers define and re-engineer business and technical processes
• Coaching online retailers in best practices and 'best fit' solutions
• Facilitating RFP and selection processes for web businesses
• Facilitating critical technology decisions in support of business objectives
• Managing the replacement and first time implementation of ecommerce systems - both simple and complex
• Integrating new platforms and point solutions to legacy systems
• Guiding US online retailers in deploying international ecommerce businesses

More testimonials >

Our management team comprises (links to profiles below):

• Bernardine Wu  Founder & CEO
• Constantine Kipnis  Sr. Consultant and Product Management Director
• Michael Wendel  Sr. Consultant and Business Analysis Director
• AJ Leale  Vice President & Sr. Consultant
• Brian Wu  Director of Usability & Design

Bernardine Wu  Founder & CEO

Bernardine Wu is the founder and CEO of FitForCommerce, a business which resulted from her many years of operational and strategic success in helping online retailers find solutions and redesign and redeploy new or enhanced webstores.

Bernardine is also a co-founder and Board Advisor of SiteAcuity (www.siteacuity.com) which provides online marketing, sales and contact center technology to increase marketing intelligence and human touch to online businesses. She advises the company on business development and corporate strategy.

Before joining SiteAcuity, Bernardine served as the president and chief operating officer at Venda, Inc., a leading provider of outsourced eCommerce platforms, overseeing finance, marketing, business development, and operations for the company. As a co-founder of Venda, Inc., she had key responsibilities in the strategic planning and execution of Venda's launch and growth in North America. Clients included: Lands' End, Neiman Marcus, Crabtree & Evelyn, UnderArmour, Pokemon, MarketExpo and DoItYourself.com.

Prior to founding Venda, Bernardine was an independent consultant focusing on executive-level projects and business strategies tied to increasing revenues, restructuring costs and maximizing organizational efficiency at a variety of institutions including the New York Stock Exchange. Before that, Bernardine managed business development, marketing, PR, and the B2B eCommerce business unit at OptiMark, Inc., a provider of advanced matching engine and exchange technology. Bernardine also held senior technology and operations management positions at brokerage firms Salomon Brothers and Jefferies & Company.

Bernardine has extensive finance, technology and eCommerce experience rooted in Wall Street and a successful history working in the eCommerce technology industry as a consultant for Accenture. Bernardine received her BA in English and Asian Studies at Dartmouth College.

Constantine Kipnis  Sr. Consultant and Product Management Director

Constantine Kipnis is a senior consultant and product management director at FitForCommerce, responsible for the overall development of the eCommerce Diligence(tm) process and toolkit. He is also an eCommerce coach, having helped many online retailers through the design and implementation of new webstores.

Constantine has served in senior roles in both product and project management at several Internet companies including OnForce.com, Product Delta, Broadband Office, iManage, and Intermedia. At Venda, Inc., Constantine was a project manager assisting online retailers in re-designing webstores, analyzing business and technical requirements, and managing the development and implementation of front-to-back eCommerce solutions. Clients included Crabtree & Evelyn, Danskin and Jurlique.

Constantine has also served in senior technical and technical consulting roles at various Internet companies. At Photo File, Inc., Constantine was director of eCommerce, where he re-launched an e-retailer of MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL sports products.

Constantine holds a BA from the U. of Minnesota, an MA in Russian Studies from the U. of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from U. of Florida.

Michael Wendel  Sr. Consultant and Business Analysis Director

Michael Wendel is a senior consultant and business analysis director at FitForCommerce, responsible for research and content development of the knowledge base. He is also an eCommerce coach, having helped many online retailers define detailed technical and functional requirements and custom implementations of new webstores.

Michael has over 12 years of experience as an eCommerce specialist. His online retail client list includes America Online, Yahoo!, Charles Schwab, CNNfn, Nine West, Kodak, Museum of Modern Art, Redcats USA, Canon and AAA. Prior to joining FitForCommerce, he worked at eCommerce platform provider Venda, Inc., where his role as business analyst and sales engineer was instrumental in providing the business and technical information and expertise needed by Venda's prospects, clients and technical teams for a successful webstore deployment.

Previously, Michael was a senior engineer at Cordsel Technologies, designing and developing eCommerce applications from inception to launch. He also worked at eCommerce design and development provider Fry, Inc., implementing eCommerce websites for their high-profile clients. Michael's many years in the eCommerce industry, in a variety of roles from developer to QA analyst to business analyst to sales engineer, have provided him with the experience and expertise he is leveraging in his key role at FitForCommerce.

Michael received his BA in Business Administration and Information Systems from the University of Miami.

AJ Leale  Vice President & Sr. Consultant

AJ Leale is a senior consultant at FitForCommerce and manages several sales and operations initiatives. With over 13 years of eCommerce experience, AJ's expertise includes industry best practices and trends, detailed understanding of existing web applications and services, application architecture, development and management of live webstores and Internet applications.

AJ's has an extensive history in architecting and implementing small to large scale eCommerce applications.  His roles have ranged from presales engineering, solution architecting, integration design, website development, management of project and technical implementation teams and account management. As director of web development at WebCollage, AJ was responsible for over 35 customer projects (including HP, Kodak, Lenovo, Olympus, Microsoft, Sony, Symantec) through a team of US based project managers and offshore developers in Israel and Russia. As an early pioneer in ecommerce at platform providers InterWorld and Venda, AJ managed the design and implementation of some of the earliest e-retailers (Ann Taylor, Burlington Coat Factory, Pet Smart, Speedo, Nike, Toys R Us, Jockey, Educational Resources, Lillian Vernon, L'Oreal, Lancôme, and Maybelline) and recently some of the most complex webstores, including the international site for premiere retailer Lands' End.

Additional Internet expertise comes from developing Salesforce.com application add-ons for Bluewolf, Inc. and development of the first NYC restaurant guide in the mid-90's handling online ordering of meals for over 3000 restaurants.

AJ has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Brian Wu  Director of Usability & Design

Brian Wu serves as a Web Usability & Design Consultant to FitForCommerce clients. In addition to FitForCommerce engagements, Mr. Wu is a principal at Inside Out Design, a design company he founded in 1993, that has served clients such as Xerox, Union Pacific, Zagat Survey and many small and start-up companies. Mr. Wu has applied his expertise in information architecture, interaction design, information design, brand development, and graphic design to projects as varied as process control software, corporate annual reports, and food packaging.

Mr. Wu began his career at Chermayeff & Geismar Associates, where he developed corporate identity systems and corporate publications. Next, he served as the art director of Callaway Editions, a publisher of illustrated books, then as the design director at BAM! Software, where he developed user interfaces for educational and entertainment CD-ROM titles.

Mr. Wu has taught design technology classes at The Cooper Union School of Art, the School of Visual Arts and the Apple Computer Market Center and has presented his work at conferences on both coasts. Mr. Wu earned both a Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and a Masters in Fine Arts degree in graphic design at Yale University.