Engineering Online Fashion

Mercedes De Luca
Global customer experience officer and CIO
myShape.com Pasadena, Calif.

Mercedes De Luca left Yahoo! in late 2007 to join myShape.com, an online fashion retailer that suggests clothing styles based on a customer’s measurements, body shape and preferences. As global customer experience officer and CIO for the Pasadena, Calif.-based company, De Luca helps solve a problem shared by women of all ages and sizes — finding clothing that both fits and flatters using myShape’s patented “Personal Shop” technology.

With a B.S. in electrical engineering from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University, De Luca recently joined the board of INETCO, which helps companies understand and optimize the flow of transactions across complex networks and IT infrastructure.

How did you come to study engineering?
In junior high I thought I’d be a math teacher, because I’ve always been strong in math and science. In high school, one of the big oil companies of the day sponsored high school students taking physics to go to a week-long engineering camp at a Michigan university to introduce them — especially women — to engineering. I was so inspired because they had women in each of the engineering fields — chemical, industrial, mechanical, civil and electrical — talk about what they did.

They followed that with a hands-on lab. After the electrical engineering hands-on, I was completely hooked: I came back and said, “I’m applying to engineering college.” I did, and received a scholarship.

What was your first paying job?
My first job out of college was sales engineer. I worked for a company that sold large computers and mini-computers. I helped the salespeople configure the systems they were selling — it was a technical job. After two years of doing that, I wound up participating in the sales training program and went into sales for them.

Besides that sales job, did you ever “work retail”?
The closest I ever came happened to be the first job I ever had. I worked in a dry cleaner, dealing with the public, dealing with their clothing.

Any life lessons learned there?
The owner of the store — it wasn’t a chain or franchise — had really good business relationships. We got to know everybody very well. What I learned there and from the sales job is [that] understanding your customer and knowing what to suggest when is critical. For example, when to suggest to the customer: “You might want to have that shirt washed rather than dry cleaned, and here’s why.” And understanding the customer’s preferences is key.

With myShape, I saw the chance not only to use my technical background [but to] marry [it to] my passion for fashion and a life-long desire to simplify technology for the non-technically inclined. Engineers always try to do it better, faster, easier and cheaper. The easier, simplified part has been a theme throughout my career. I’ve been in high tech and engineering my entire career, but I love to shop so I feel that qualifies me in my current position.

Role models or mentors?
My mother influenced my career. The person who most influenced me and continues to is Steve Jobs, because of the way he approaches ease of use and simplification of technology. I’ve never met him, but he’s the gold standard. I’ve long admired the designs of Donna Karan because she understands a woman. She’s always looking to flatter a woman’s shape.

Book on the nightstand?
“Go Put Your Strengths to Work” [Marcus Buckingham], and I’m also reading “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.

A little known fact about you?
I’m a huge, huge football fan.

Where did you spend your last vacation?
I was in Sicily about a year and a half ago and it was fabulous — we’re still talking about the food. De Luca is a Sicilian name and I went there on the “roots” trip.

Guests — living or passed — you’d invite to your ultimate dinner party?
It would definitely be in my home and I’d to the cooking. It would likely be Italian using absolutely the best Parmesan, mozzarella and tomatoes I could get. I’d like Katharine Hepburn to come. She was such a strong woman and a fashion force unto herself.