Best Buy picks Jason Bonfig as its new CEO - and he's getting a big raise

By Bill Peters

Best Buy shares fell as the new CEO faces big challenges, with some believing the retailer has lost some of its relevance with customers

Best Buy named Jason Bonfig (right) as its new CEO. He will succeed Corie Barry (left), who will step down in October after seven years in the role.

When Jason Bonfig becomes Best Buy's sixth CEO in the retailer's six-decade history later this year, he'll face a variety of challenges - from stretched consumers to memory-chip shortages, as well as a prolonged stretch of sluggish sales at the electronics chain.

Best Buy (BBY) announced the leadership changeover on Wednesday. The retailer said its current CEO, 27-year company veteran Corie Barry, would step down after seven years in that role and will no longer be on the retailer's board directors, effective Oct. 31. That makes Barry the second-longest-tenured CEO in Best Buy's history. She will stay on as a strategic advisor for six months after she leaves the job.

Bonfig - Best Buy's current chief customer, product and fulfillment officer who, like Barry, joined the company in 1999 - will take Barry's place as CEO and as a board member starting Nov. 1. With that comes a new employment agreement, which includes a big bump in salary.

Investors appeared to have reservations. Shares of Best Buy were down 4.5% on Wednesday, putting the stock among the S&P 500 index's SPX 10 worst performers on the day.

The leadership change comes after Barry steered the company through the COVID pandemic and the waves of supply disruptions that followed. Bonfig will take on Best Buy's top job as higher costs of living continue to leave less room for consumers to buy things like electronics - even as the chain banks on product-replacement cycles and new technology to revive sales. He will also step in amid an artificial-intelligence boom that has strained the supply of memory chips that go into electronic devices.

"From here, the conversation will center on how the company expects to navigate an environment shaped by intensifying competition, evolving consumer demand, and uncertainty around [the] impact of memory-shortages-related cost inflation," UBS analysts said last month.

Bonfig started at the company as an inventory analyst in 1999. Most recently, he oversaw the creation of Best Buy's online U.S. marketplace and the expansion of its ads business - areas the company said were crucial to growth.

He will also get a pay raise. Best Buy's latest proxy filing showed Bonfig's salary was $790,385 in fiscal 2025, which ended in January of that year. His yearly base salary as CEO will be $1,250,000 for the first three years on the job, with an available target annual bonus of 190% of that salary, depending on company performance.

When he starts as CEO, Bonfig will get an additional long-term incentive compensation award for Best Buy's fiscal 2027 with a target value of $1,781,250. Those awards for fiscal 2028 will have a target value of $10,125,000. That compares with Barry's total compensation in fiscal 2025 of $16.15 million.

Best Buy's stock has lost 4.9% so far this year, while the State Street S&P Retail ETF XRT has gained 2% and the S&P 500 has advanced 4.1%. The company's share price, at just above $63, is about 3% below where it was when Barry became Best Buy's CEO on June 11, 2019.

However, the time in between then and now wasn't without drama.

Best Buy's share price took off during the surge in digital demand due to the pandemic, soaring 110% from the day Barry became CEO to the stock's record close of $138 on Nov. 22, 2021. But the sales gains from that demand peaked a year later, and the stock has lost more than half its value since.

The company, in its quarterly earnings report last month, offered a weaker-than-expected outlook following a decline in same-store sales for its fourth quarter, which covered a more discount-heavy holiday shopping season and ran up against harsh winter weather. But shares rallied on better-than-expected quarterly profits.

As GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders put it, while Barry did an "excellent job" navigating the pandemic, 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 [sales] growth," Saunders wrote in a note to clients.

Sales for the fiscal year to January 2026 rose just 0.4% from the year before, but that's after they dropped 20% over the previous three years, according to FactSet data.

Still, some executives say the current memory-chip shortage could stretch through next year. During a conference in March, Matt Bilunas, Best Buy's chief financial and strategy officer, expressed confidence that the company could handle the tighter supplies of memory chips, even as they threaten to drive up costs for electronics.

Bilunas added that people still needed computers and phones - two devices that come with high memory costs - and that consumers were still replacing computers they bought during the pandemic. And he argued that Best Buy sold gear at a wide range of prices.

"So, even if there are some changes to costs, you're going to be able to find the $1,000 computer," he said. "You're going to be able to find the phone that you want at the price range that you want, because there are ... still demand signals within computing."

-Bill Peters

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04-22-26 1430ET