Two top Best Buy executives are leaving as roles are realigned

Two top Best Buy executives are leaving the company as CEO Hubert Joly reshuffles his leadership team's responsibilities.

The two departing leaders are Mary Lou Kelley, Best Buy's president of e-commerce, and Greg Revelle, the Richfield-based retailer's chief marketing officer, said sources familiar with the matter. Both executives were hired by Joly in 2014.

Their responsibilities are being added to those of other top executives in order to streamline and integrate different functions of the company, a source said.

A Best Buy spokesperson said the company does not comment on personnel matters.

As part of the reorganization, Shari Ballard, Best Buy's head of U.S. retail, will take on e-commerce as the lines between shopping in stores and online continue to blur. Customers often use their smartphones to look up products in stores or will buy items online and pick them up in stores.

Allison Peterson, a senior marketing executive, has been promoted to lead Best Buy's online operations and will report to Ballard.

Mike Mohan, Best Buy's chief merchandising officer, will add marketing to his plate. Another senior marketing executive, Whit Alexander, will become the new chief marketing officer and will report to Mohan. At Best Buy, marketing and merchandising are often interconnected since vendors often negotiate their level of promotional support with merchants.

One of the aims of the leadership changes is to have the company's organizational structure more closely support the new strategic plan that Joly unveiled last week called Best Buy 2020: Building the New Blue.

"In this next phase, we go from turning around the company to shaping our future, and creating a company that customers and employees love, and that continues to generate a superior return for our shareholders," Joly told analysts last week on a conference call. "At the core of Best Buy 2020 is, of course, the customer."

In the new road map, Best Buy is hoping to find top-line growth through maximizing its sales potential from online and physical stores, expanding its suite of services and solutions such as the Geek Squad and growing its business in Canada and Mexico.

Last week, Best Buy reported a small drop in holiday sales that disappointed investors even though it also logged higher-than-expected profits. While the company is now focusing more on growth, executives said they expect to see flat sales and profits this year amid an industrywide decline in electronics.

The departure and realignment of Joly's executive team will reduce his number of direct reports.

Kelley, who held previous executive positions at Chico's and L.L. Bean, oversaw Best Buy's efforts to rebuild its digital foundation. She brought more IT staff in house and in 2015 spearheaded the opening of a tech office in Seattle.

As Best Buy has stabilized its website and enhanced its app with tools such as curated customer reviews, the company's online sales have risen about 21 percent in the last year and now account for about 13 percent of U.S. revenue.

Revelle, a former executive from AutoNation and Expedia, filled a role that had been vacant for more than a year and a half. Under his leadership, Best Buy continued to shift its focus from traditional to digital and personalized marketing. The company did away with the agency-of-record model and instead started hiring firms on a per-project basis.

He also led Best Buy's most recent holiday campaign with TV ads that ran in prominent time slots and were grouped under the slogan Holiday Gifting Made Easy.

Kavita Kumar • 612-673-4113