After years of brainstorming in the worlds of retail and online ventures, Bernard Louvat found a way to bring it all together.

“What intrigued me with inQ was the possibility of using technology and operations to recreate online sales processes that I had put in place in stores I had managed and call centers I had run,” said Louvat, who was recently named president and chief executive of the Agoura Hills-based company that develops online marketing for e-commerce sites.

He graduated from Harvard Business School in 1991 and joined the Disney Store unit of Walt Disney Co. in Los Angeles. He was part of the team selected to expand Disney Stores across Europe first in Britain and then in France. He also brought Office Depot to France.

Later, Louvat joined Idealab as a general manager for CitySearch.com, then left to start Bizbuyer.com, a purchasing portal for small businesses. Next, with Idealab founder Bill Gross, he started Evolution Robotics Inc., building robotics for retail industries and partnering with corporations such as Sony.

Last year, Louvat found out about inQ and its live chat solutions for businesses and got hooked.

“I realized that there are some limits as to what you can achieve with static merchandising executions online,” Louvat said. “InQ technology consists of live chat. That enables a live representative on the Web to engage an online consumer and to pitch a product.”

The strategy drives sales up much higher than static executive Web sites, Louvat said, adding that live chat is two to three times cheaper than customer service calls.

“Anybody with a Web site today who sells something can use InQ,” Louvat said. “InQ is a very simple idea that people grasp very quickly.”

The French native now lives in Agoura Hills. He likes to spend time outdoors with his wife and four children by swimming, hiking, skiing, camping, or biking and visiting zoos and museums.