Hubert Joly

Hubert Joly
Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy
Born	1959 (age 57–58) France
Residence	Richfield, Minnesota, U.S.
Alma mater	HEC Paris Sciences Po
Occupation	CEO — Best Buy

HEC Paris

Hubert Joly, born and raised in France, is the CEO of Best Buy. He was the former president, CEO and a former director of Carlson, a global hospitality and travel company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US.

Joly left Vivendi in 2004 to become president and chief executive officer of Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT). Under his leadership, CWT grew its annual sales from USD 8.9 billion in 2003 to USD 25.5 billion in 2007. Joly’s appointment as president and chief executive officer of Carlson was made in January 2008, as a replacement for Marilyn Carlson Nelson, and he took the positions in March 2008. As CEO of Carlson, he has crafted and led the implementation of Ambition 2015, a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the company’s leadership position across its businesses, including its restaurant division with more than 900 T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants, and its hotel division with more than 1,000 hotels around the world. The strategies that make up Ambition 2015 have included the repositioning of the company’s core brands; significant changes at the front line to “operationalize” the brand promises and upgrade the guest experience; major investments and initiatives to boost revenue generation focused on the web, the company’s loyalty programs, global sales and working with the trade; as well as the global expansion of the company in key emerging countries.

On August 17, 2012, Joly resigned from his position with Carlson to take the position of CEO at Best Buy, Inc. Under Joly and his Renew Blue transformation at Best Buy, the company's stock tripled in 2013 with the focus on banking on big box stores, superior customer service, product selection, and services like the Geek Squad. According to the New York Times, Joly's top goal is matching the lowest price, determined to make sure that a customer who came to Best Buy as a showroom has no reason to buy anywhere else. "The strategy is very simple,” he told the New York Times in 2012, soon after he took the job. “We believe that price-competitiveness is table stakes. The way we want to win is around the advice, convenience, service.”