In June, Hubert Joly will head Best Buy to Corie Barry, currently General Manager of Finance and Transformation, after a welcome turnaround by Wall Street and its employees.

But Joly is not ready to retire yet. He will become Executive Chair, working on external and government relations, leadership development and all that Barry will ask of him, "he said.

"Leading this iconic Minnesota company has been the greatest honor and pleasure of my professional career," said Joly, 59.

The Richfield-based company has already reached the financial targets set for fiscal year 2021 and Joly is a new grandfather, which allowed him to decide that this was the right time to set up his succession plan.

When Best Buy presented its strategic plans for the next phase of the company at an investor day in September, Joly said he hoped Wall Street could see the leaders who will carry out this plan.

Barry, who was promoted to Executive Vice President, Transformation and Finance in November, has been closely involved in defining next steps for Best Buy's growth. The same goes for Mike Mohan, who, after the company's annual meeting on June 11, will add the president as its chief operating officer.

"Nearly seven years ago, the board made a surprisingly positive decision asking a Frenchman with no retail experience to save this business," Barry wrote in a letter to employees Monday morning.

"Perhaps without knowing it, Hubert had been preparing for this moment all his life and he brought to work his remarkable brain, his boundless energy and his deep passion," said Barry, 43, who will become the first woman CEO of the company. "Like all of you, I will always be grateful to him for guiding us during those dark days and then helping us find the path of true transformation and rebirth."

Joly, who has several jackets with the Best Buy lapel pin on the back of his office door, is known for his bumps in his fist and his high-five points when he visits the stores and for his enthusiasm in meetings. d & # 39; company. But his energy should not exceed his capabilities, industry observers said.

"Joly has brought financial rigor to the company," said Peter Keith of Piper Jaffray in January. "He brought a great, energetic and hardworking personality that people can take."

This kind of enthusiasm was to be deserved. The retail world was skeptical in 2012 when Best Buy chose Joly, then head of the Carlson Home Corporation, as the next CEO.

At the time, the last CEO had been ousted for having an inappropriate relationship. The founder of Best Buy, Richard Schulze, was trying to buy the company. And the consumer electronics chain has weakened on the market. Joly was the first outsider to run the company, just as he was the first non-family member to lead Carlson.

Joly then understood with his team how Best Buy could reinvent itself during one of the biggest disruptions in the retail sector.

Over the last four years, annual earnings per share have almost doubled. Comparable store sales comparisons increased for eight consecutive quarters. And it changed the mindset of the company: instead of selling electronics, Best Buy will help meet the needs of customers through technology. He likes to call it the "happiness" business.

This means that more emphasis needs to be placed on home-based counseling services, a new health care monitoring company, as well as technology and staffing that allows users to shop as they wish, as well as whether in store or online. It also means pursuing partnerships with companies from Samsung and Apple until Amazon to provide expertise to customers when they make purchases.

Yet running a business is never 9 to 5 or even 9 to 9, he said, and he's been doing it at senior positions for 20 years now. "To say that it's a full-time job is misleading," he said in an interview. "These are jobs all the time."

He would like to slow down a bit now. But he said he was extremely proud of what society has become. This includes more training opportunities and benefits for employees at all levels and a reduction in turnover from the mid-50s to the bottom of the 30s.

More importantly, he said, is that the company has become "goal-oriented", seeking to make decisions that are good for employees and customers based on its stated mission.

"Hubert has done a great job in leading Best Buy's turnaround, bringing together a team of talented leaders and setting a clear strategy for future growth and sustainable success," said Russell Fradin, Best Buy Independent Director and Member of the board of directors since 2013. statement. "We are confident that Corie and Mike are in a perfect position … to drive Best Buy into the next phase of its transformation."

Joly said Barry played a decisive role in his decision-making. "It's the best professional relationship I've had," he said. "She is a very human leader, genuine and resolute."

And his "wealth of experience at Best Buy is unmatched," he said.

In addition to two years at Deloitte and Touche, right after graduating from the St. Joseph's College of St. Benedict, Barry has spent his entire career at Best Buy.

"I could not have been more honored and humiliated" to be named CEO, Barry said in an interview. Her experience – and all the employees she has met, from store associates to merchants and C-suite peers – have convinced her that she is ready to assume the role of leader. In addition, she would become CEO at a decisive moment, "a luxury".

Barry said she is a collaborative leader, willing to take advice at all levels and grateful that Joly is at the end of the road to consult. (They are changing offices and "have already come a way".)

The retail disruption, which will undoubtedly continue, means "constantly reinventing itself". However, new strategies must always return to the mission of helping people with technology, she said.

"What has been very helpful is that over the past two years our goal has been clearly defined," she said.

For example, when the company announced last year that it would buy $ 800 million from Great Call, a California-based company, Best Buy saw an opportunity to help seniors stay at home. they as long as possible with the help of technology.

Not only does the company provide monitors, supported by a call center, to help the elderly in case of problems, but Barry sees these monitors turned into a "concierge" service to help people get everything they need in customer services.

Barry also sees opportunities in health monitoring, such as sensors that can alert family members if an elderly person's routine changes, which may indicate a medical problem.

One of Joly's goals during his tenure was to diversify the C-Suite and the staff as a whole. The Best Buy Board of Directors already has one of the most diverse boards of the Fortune 500 genre. Now, when Barry takes his place as part of his promotion, the Board of Directors will be in charge. administration will have 7-6 women.

Barry becomes the seventh female CEO among the Fortune 100 companies, according to Best Buy. She becomes the third female CEO of a Minnesota Fortune 500 company, after Land O'Lakes Beth Ford and Terry Rasmussen of Thrivent.