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

Best Buy said Wednesday that company veteran Jason Bonfig will succeed Corie Barry as the retailer’s CEO on Oct. 31, taking over as Best Buy tries to break a run of 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 join the company’s board.

Barry will stay on as a strategic advisor for six months after stepping down, the company said in a news release.

The leadership change comes as Best Buy tries to get back to meaningful sales growth and capitalize on a wave of artificial intelligence-enabled mobile phones and laptops. The company’s sales have lagged in the past four years, which Best Buy has attributed to a slower housing market, price-conscious U.S. consumers and less tech innovation.

The company said at least some of those dynamics will likely persist this fiscal year. Best Buy said in early March that it expects revenue to range between $41.2 billion and $42.1 billion, compared with $41.69 billion last fiscal year. It expects adjusted earnings per share to range from $6.30 to $6.60, after it reported adjusted earnings per share of $6.43 for the previous fiscal year. 

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

In the company’s news release, David Kenny, chair of Best Buy’s board of directors, described Bonfig as “the right leader to accelerate the business, with urgency and innovative ideas, and create meaningful growth for the company and its shareholders.”

In his current role, Bonfig oversees many aspects of Best Buy’s business, including merchandising, marketing, supply chain, e-commerce and its advertising business, Best Buy Ads. He helped launch the company’s third-party marketplace in the U.S. in August, one of its strategies to drive 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 started in the role in June 2019. She led Best Buy through a period marked by rapid changes and spikes in demand — including a rush to buy computer monitors and kitchen appliances during the Covid pandemic — along with supply-chain headaches, high inflation and President Donald Trump’s sharp increase in global tariffs.

Kenny, chair of the company’s board of directors, said Barry “guided Best Buy with a confident and steady hand and an unrelenting commitment to drive value for our employees, customers, partners and shareholders through some of the most tumultuous and uncertain times we have ever seen.”

Best Buy’s stock has reflected that turbulence, too. On the day she began as CEO, the price of the company’s shares were $65.52, but they shot up to an all-time closing high of $138 on Nov. 22, 2021.

Shares closed on Tuesday at $66.59, bringing the company’s market cap to $13.93 billion. As of Tuesday’s close, Best Buy’s stock is up about 7% over the past year and down about 0.5% this year. That compares to the S&P 500’s approximately 37% gains and 3% rise, respectively, during the same time periods.

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

In an equity research note, retail analyst Kate McShane said the company may get a bounce from higher tax refunds in the first quarter of the year as customers buy new devices. Yet she said she expects sales and margins to come under pressure during the rest of the year as higher memory costs drive up the price of computers and laptops and consumers trade down to cheaper laptops.

Plus, she said, Best Buy’s sales of appliances and other consumer electronics have lagged, even as competitors like Home Depot and Lowe’s have posted stronger sales trends.