Best Buy Gets A New CEO: Hubert Joly Taking Over The Electronics Giant

Best Buy's year hasn't been "easy," you might say. The company has experienced a great deal of turmoil, shutting the doors on a number of stores while seeing its CEO head for the exits after a potentially dodgy decision in his personal life. Then, there's the proposed buyout offer from the founder, along with public words of wisdom on how to get everything back on track. Now, however, Best Buy is starting anew, announcing a new CEO to lead the company going forward. The Board of Directors has appointed Hubert Joly to take the top seat, citing his "expertise in turnaround and growth across the media, technology and service sectors."

Mr. Joly is expected to step into his role as President and Chief Executive Officer in early September when his visa is secured. That's right; the man is taking a CEO role in the U.S., yet doesn't have a work visa approved yet. Talk about stressful. Joly led the restructuring and growth of Vivendi’s video game’s business (now part of Activision Blizzard) from 1999 to 2001, and drove the turnaround of EDS (now part of HP) in France from 1996 to 1999, boosting revenues from a then rapidly declining 1.3 billion French Francs to 2.1 billion, while increasing the profit margin by 20 points of revenue. He also held down the CEO spot at Carlson Wagonlit Travel, worked at McKinsey & Company, Inc. and graduated from École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris) and Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.


What's clear is that Joly has hopped around a lot in his career, rarely staying at one place for long. Honestly, it's hard to judge a man's impact with such short time frames, and it's even harder to judge how long he's truly planning to stay at Best Buy. The company needs someone that'll hang around for the long haul, and hopefully he's the one to do it. We've already lost Circuit City; can the world survive without seeing that big yellow sticker on store signage?