e the first female CEO at Best Buy when she stepped into the role in 2019, will step down from both her position and the board at the end of Q3 on October 31 this year. While Best Buy saw a boost under Barry’s leadership, especially during the first few years of the Covid pandemic, profitability tapered off as consumer sentiment for big-ticket items like televisions and laptops weakened due to higher borrowing costs and inflation. Best Buy’s sales have dropped in 14 of the past 16 quarters, and the stock has lost about 15 per cent of its value since April 2, 2025. Over the same period, the benchmark S&P 500 index has gained about 25 per cent. Kimberly Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners, said Barry had turned the company around during a challenging time but that Bonfig appears focused on positioning it for the AI age. Bonfig’s appointment continues a broader trend of companies promoting long-serving executives to CEO roles rather than bringing in external hires to drive change. A leadership change at a pivotal moment Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData, said the leadership change comes at a pivotal moment, as the company struggles to prepare for its next phase. “Under Corie Barry, Best Buy did an excellent job of navigating the pandemic and emerging as a more powerful player in the electronics space. The business has also been well managed in terms of profitability and operations, and has a stable foundation from which to conduct business,” he said. “However, there is a sense that Best Buy has not been building on that foundation. Over the past few years, Best Buy has lost some of its relevance with customers and has struggled to generate decent top-line growth. Unfortunately, not all of this can be attributed to a soft consumer economy or the toll of inflation, as the business has largely underperformed the wider market and lost share.” Saunders added that the central issue is that Best Buy stores are functional but largely uninspiring spaces that attract purpose-driven visits rather than casual browsing. Some of the areas that are supposed to add value, like the home theatre experience, look tired and dated. “At a time when consumers can get much more information about products online, including using AI to undertake research, this approach leaves Best Buy vulnerable,” he said. “Worryingly, there seems to have been a lack of will for Best Buy to take bolder bets. Rather than rethinking how it approaches the market, Best Buy has dabbled in adding non-electronics categories, such as furniture, to its stores. This is not wrong per se, but it does nothing to address the core issues. The challenge for Jason Bonfig will be to firmly grasp this nettle and determine how Best Buy maintains relevance in a rapidly evolving market.” Melissa Minkow, global director of retail strategy at CI&T, argued specialty retail has faced sustained pressure from the rise of big-box players, making Best Buy’s position particularly challenging. Over the last few years, she added, Best Buy has been smart to intentionally bring more technology into its operations to optimise efficiency and invest in retail media and a marketplace strategy. “The new CEO’s background in customer, product and fulfilment is a very big positive since continued supply chain and innovation efforts will be the ticket to growth. I don’t always think an internal successor is the correct choice, but this is a challenging business that will require deep industry and brand expertise. Corie Barry did a great job, and I’m confident Jason Bonfig will as well.” Meanwhile, retail strategist Christine Russo, principal of RCCA, said Barry’s departure reflects a natural leadership cycle, noting both Barry and Hubert Joly served roughly seven years as CEO. “Today we see Best Buy entering a new phase of accelerated growth under new leadership, Jason Bonfig,” she said. “Bonfig will likely draw from his wide-ranging Best Buy leadership roles in ads, marketplace, fulfilment and product. He has the perfect all-around experience a CEO needs to target growth opportunities. What he needs to do to boost Best Buy’s profitability: that’s an easy answer – increase sales at higher margins. “The question is: What levers should he pull to achieve that? He might want to start by reasserting Best Buy as a relevant and top-of-mind resource. As competition has grown and the retail landscape has changed, this has not been the case for many years.” Bonfig will need to deliver continuity under pressure Barney Stacher, CEO of retail consultancy firm Stacher & Stacher and a Rethink Retail adviser, said Barry deserves credit for stabilising and modernising the business through a volatile retail cycle. “She leaned into services, memberships, and operational discipline at a time when pure product retail was under pressure. The focus on Geek Squad, Totaltech and supply chain resilience helped protect margins and reinforce relevance beyond just being a price-driven electronics seller,” he said. “But the headline here isn’t just succession – it’s continuity with pressure.” Stacher believes Bonfig’s 25-plus years of experience positions him to drive future margin expansion. “This isn’t a turnaround CEO coming in from the outside with a mandate to blow things up. This is someone who helped build the current strategy and is now being asked to prove it can actually deliver growth, and that’s where the challenge intensifies,” he said. “Consumer electronics has shifted from a pandemic tailwind to a more cyclical, promotional and increasingly commoditised category. Best Buy has seen declining sales in most recent quarters and a stock that hasn’t kept pace with the broader market. So profitability won’t come from incremental optimisation – it requires a more decisive point of view. “The bottom line is that Corie Barry helped Best Buy survive and stabilise a turbulent era. Now Jason Bonfig has to prove that the strategy he helped build can actually scale into profitable growth – and that Best Buy still has a reason to matter in a post-Amazon, AI-driven retail landscape.” Further reading: Can Apple’s new CEO match ‘generational’ leader Tim Cook?