Best Buy names Jason Bonfig as new CEO, replacing Corie Barry

Best Buy The veteran Jason Bonfig will replace Corie Barry as the retailer’s CEO on Oct. 31, the company said Wednesday, taking over as Best Buy tries to break stagnant sales.

Bonfig, 49, is chief customer, product and fulfillment officer and rose through the ranks after joining the retailer as an inventory analyst in 1999. He will become Best Buy’s sixth chief executive officer and will join the company’s board of directors.

Barry will remain as a strategic advisor for six months after his resignation, the company said in a news release.

The leadership change comes as Best Buy tries to return to meaningful sales growth and capitalize on a wave of AI-powered mobile phones and laptops. The company’s sales have declined over the past four years, and Best Buy attributes that to a slower housing market, price-conscious U.S. consumers and less technological innovation.

At least some of these dynamics will likely continue this fiscal year, the company said. Best Buy said in early March that it expected revenue to range between $41.2 billion and $42.1 billion, compared to $41.69 billion last fiscal year. It expects adjusted earnings per share to range between $6.30 and $6.60, after reporting adjusted earnings per share of $6.43 for the previous fiscal year.

It said comparable sales, a metric that tracks sales online and at stores open at least 14 months, would range from a 1% decline to a 1% increase.

In the company’s press release, Best Buy executive chairman David Kenny described Bonfig as “the right leader to accelerate the business with urgent and innovative ideas and create meaningful growth for the company and its shareholders.”

In his current role, Bonfig oversees many aspects of Best Buy, including merchandising, marketing, supply chain, e-commerce and its advertising business, Best Buy Ads. It helped launch the company’s third-party market in the U.S. in August, one of its strategies to generate more sales and higher profits.

Barry, 51, will step down after nearly seven years in the company’s top job. She became the first woman to lead Best Buy when she took office in June 2019. He led Best Buy through a period marked by rapid change and surges in demand, including supply chain headaches, high inflation and President Donald Trump’s sharp increase in global tariffs, as well as a rush to buy computer monitors and kitchen appliances during the Covid pandemic.

Kenny, the company’s executive chairman, said Barry “guided Best Buy through some of the most turbulent and uncertain times we have ever seen with a confident, steady hand and a relentless commitment to creating value for our employees, customers, partners and shareholders.”

Best Buy shares reflect this turbulence. The price of the company’s shares was $65.52 on the day he took office as CEO, but rose to an all-time high close of $138 on November 22, 2021.

Shares closed at $66.59 on Tuesday, pushing the company’s market value to $13.93 billion. As of Tuesday’s close, Best Buy’s shares were up about 7% over the past year and down about 0.5% this year. This compares with the S&P 500’s gain of about 37% and 3%, respectively, over the same periods.

Best Buy faces some skepticism among investors. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs downgraded the company’s shares from buy to sell.

The company could get a bounce from higher rebates in the first quarter of the year as customers buy new devices, retail analyst Kate McShane said in an equity research note. But it said it expects sales and margins to come under pressure for the rest of the year as higher memory costs push up PC and laptop prices and consumers switch to cheaper laptops.

He also said Best Buy’s sales of home appliances and other consumer electronics lagged even as rivals such as Home Depot and Lowe’s posted stronger sales trends.