Best Buy Founder Resigns, Board Announces New Company Chairman

Best Buy Founder Resigns, Board Announces New Company Chairman

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Minneapolis, MN—The board of directors of Best Buy Co. appointed Hatim A. Tyabji as the chairman of the company. Tyabji, who chairs the Audit committee, has served as a director since 1998.

This change reflects an acceleration of the timing of the company’s planned leadership transition. In May, the board announced that Tyabji would succeed Richard Schulze as chairman and Schulze would assume the honorary position of founder and chairman emeritus at the annual meeting on June 21, 2012. This follows the sudden resignation of former CEO Brian Dunn this past April. The board reported that Dunn had an inappropriate relationship with a female employee, and an internal investigation revealed that Schulze knew about the relationship but did not tell the board.

Schulze, an iconic entrepreneur who started Best Buy more than 40 years ago, was expected to serve out the remainder of his term as director through June 2013. However, on June 7 he notified the board of his decision to resign from the board, including the chairmanship, effective immediately.

In a statement, the board offered “its deep appreciation for his enormous contributions and service as Best Buy’s founder and chairman. With hard work, leadership and vision, Mr. Schulze built Best Buy into a $50 billion enterprise with nearly 170,000 employees across the world. In the process, he changed the landscape of American retail.”

Tyabji has more than 40 years of experience as a board member, operating executive and entrepreneur in various technology industry segments, including mobile communications, enterprise software, financial services and mainframe computing. In addition to chairing Best Buy Co.’s Audit committee, he serves on its board’s Compensation and Human Resources committee.

Since 2001, Tyabji has been chairman and CEO of Bytemobile, a global provider of video optimization and traffic management systems for mobile network operators. He is also chairman of Jasper Wireless, which provides operators with cloud-based machine-to-machine and device management services. Tyabji also currently serves on the boards of Merchant e-Solutions, Touch Networks (Australia) and the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. bestbuy.com

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