The day before Thanksgiving last year, three men gathered in Best Buy founder Richard Schulze's office to prepare for what would be a make-or-break meeting with the company's new CEO.
For the past six months, Schulze, along with former top executives Brad Anderson and Al Lenzmeier, had waged a contentious campaign to purchase the company with the help of private equity investors. But at Anderson's urging, Schulze agreed to meet Hubert Joly, a Frenchman hired by the very board of directors that had ousted Schulze as chairman earlier in the year.
Schulze was skeptical. After all, why should Schulze, one of the most successful retail entrepreneurs of all time, listen to a man whose career highlight was running a travel and hospitality business?
A few minutes later, Joly walked into the office and immediately handed the billionaire his résumé. Suddenly, months of distrust began to fade.
"In a sense, he was applying for the [CEO] job," Schulze said in an exclusive interview with the Star Tribune. "That meant a lot to me."
It might seem odd that the leader of the world's largest consumer electronics retailer would need to audition for a position he had already won the previous summer. But as it turned out, Joly's gesture, a symbolic display of respect and humility, helped win over Schulze, the company's largest investor who was trying to take the company private at the time.
What began as a tense standoff between Best Buy and its founder gradually evolved into an unlikely alliance between two men with enormous sway over the future of Best Buy: Joly as CEO and Schulze playing the role of both outside agitator and the company's de facto spiritual leader. On Monday, Joly and Schulze formalized their partnership with the announcement that Schulze rejoined the company as chairman emeritus and with the appointment of former executives Brad Anderson and Al Lenzmeier as Schulze's representatives on the board of directors.
But the detente between Best Buy and Schulze has as much to do with economics and strategy as Joly's skills at diplomacy. Joly's "Renew Blue" strategy to turn around Best Buy focused heavily on fixing, not eliminating, the company's 1,000-plus stores in North America. The plan appealed enormously to Schulze, an old fashioned bricks-and-mortar guy who built his fortune on the backs of big box stores.