Hubert Joly has been the Chief Executive Officer and President of Best Buy Co., Inc. since September 2012. Joly served as the President of Carlson Hotels Worldwide and Chief Executive Officer of Carlson Hotels Worldwide for RADLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC. Mr. Joly served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of CW Government Travel, Inc. since 2008.
Joly has a famous reputation as a turnaround and transformation expert, having begun his corporate career leading the struggling French division of Electronic Data Systems. In his three years with EDS, the company reversed its revenue slide, going from 1.3 billion French Francs to 2.1 billion, while significantly increasing profit margin.
Best Buy has been dealing with increased competition from online stores, notably Amazon.com, and discounters like Wal-Mart. Under CEO Hubert Joly, the company tried to turn around results, revamping merchandise, training employees and cutting costs.
So how can Best Buy survive by matching prices long term against companies with lower expenses like Amazon and Wal-Mart?
Joly is banking on his big box stores, superior customer service, product selection, and services like the Geek squad.
Hubert Joly is closing some of the oversized and underutilized stores and opting for smaller physical spaces while digging further into digital spaces. That includes shipping purchases directly from some 1,000 stores to customers who buy online.