Dive Brief:
- In a planned departure, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry will step down from the top role and as a member of the board on Oct. 31, according to a Wednesday press release. She will remain at the company as a strategic adviser for six months after stepping down.
- The retailer’s board of directors selected Chief Customer, Product and Fulfillment Officer Jason Bonfig to take over the chief executive role and join the board at that time. A successor to Bonfig’s current role has not been named.
- Bonfig is a Best Buy veteran, having first joined as an inventory analyst in 1999. Barry has also spent a majority of her professional career at the electronics company and joined around the same time, per her LinkedIn.
Dive Insight:
Barry’s departure comes as the electronics retailer’s growth has stagnated. The executive was promoted from chief financial and strategic transformation officer to CEO in 2019, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that rattled the retail industry.
“As a Board, we are confident that Jason is the right leader to accelerate the business, with urgency and innovative ideas, and create meaningful growth for the company and its shareholders,” David Kenny, chair of the Best Buy board of directors, said in a statement.
Best Buy's revenue and net earnings have stagnated in recent years
Best Buy’s annual revenue and net earnings declined year over year between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, though both recovered slightly this past year. That came after annual growth for both metrics from fiscal years 2020 to 2022.
The retailer needs to take bolder bets to maintain relevancy in the market, GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders said in emailed comments.
“Under Corie Barry, Best Buy did an excellent job of navigating the pandemic and emerging as a more powerful player in the electronics space,” Saunders said. “However, there is a sense that Best Buy has not been building on that foundation ... The challenge for Jason Bonfig will be to firmly grasp this nettle and determine how Best Buy maintains relevance in a rapidly evolving market.”
Bonfig currently oversees Best Buy’s merchandising, e-commerce, marketing, supply chain, Best Buy Canada and Best Buy Ads, per the announcement. He also led the development of Best Buy’s digital marketplace in the U.S., which launched in August.
His oversight of such recent initiatives at Best Buy is encouraging to some analysts.
“Corie was a high-caliber leader during her role as CEO with many accomplishments, but we will remember her for the vision to direct the firm's capital and human resources toward accelerating needle-moving profit engines, like retail media, and building others, like marketplace,” Jefferies analysts led by Jonathan Matuszewski said in an emailed note Wednesday. “We're encouraged with the appointment of Jason because he was one step closer to the action, overseeing those two initiatives, among other responsibilities.”
