Best Buy exec named to draw female shoppers

MINNEAPOLIS Best Buy Co. today announced the promotion of Julie Gilbert to senior vp. In her expanded role, Gilbert oversees the company's strategy to increase its market share with female consumers, a group that controls an estimated $68 billion of the U.S. consumer electronics market. Gilbert continues to report to Tim Sheehan, senior vp of customer experience creation.

"Julie's passion to significantly grow this company is evident in solid business results and contagious leadership which has remarkably motivated tens of thousands of employees to make their mark on Best Buy and innovate the business," said Sheehan. "She has helped us grow the bottom line by significantly reducing female employee turnover and developing a stronger pipeline of high-potential leaders within the company. Moving forward, we expect Julie's drive to help grow market share, increase revenue, increase employee retention, enrich the diversity of our employee base and empower our employee innovation engine."

During her seven-year career with Best Buy, Gilbert served as vp of customer centricity where she led the creation and partnership for Best Buy's Magnolia Home Theatre store-within-a-store concept. As director of alliance development, she created and implemented several strategic relationships with key partners, including Virgin Mobile, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Sony. Prior to her time at Best Buy, she worked for Deloitte & Touche LLP where she created two new businesses including one that she scaled nationally and built to become a top performance driver for the firm.