Hubert Joly

Hubert Joly

Senior Lecturer of Business Administration

Senior Lecturer of Business Administration

Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy
Author of The Heart of Business– Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

Hubert Joly is Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. He is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy Co., Inc., and the author of The Heart of Business – Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism, a Wall Street Journal Bestseller published by Harvard Business Review Press.
General Management
+1 (617) 496-1924
 
Hubert Joly
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(617) 496-1924
Featured Work Publications Awards & Honors
Included on the 2023 Thinkers50 list—a list of the world's most influential management thinkers.
Recipient of the 2023 Greenhill Award for Outstanding Service to the HBS Community.
Recipient of 2022 Stanley Hoffman Award from Sciences Po American Foundation.
Winner of the 2021 Thinkers50 Leadership Award.
Included on the 2021 Thinkers50 list—a list of the world's most influential management thinkers.
Named HEC Paris Person of the Year in 2020.
Awarded the Deming Cup for Operational Excellence in 2019.
Named one of the Top 10 CEOs in the United States by Glassdoor in 2019.
Named one of the Top 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World by Harvard Business Review in 2018.
Named one of the Top 30 CEOs in the World by Barron’s in 2018.
Inducted into the Junior Achievement of the Upper-Midwest Business Hall of Fame in 2018.
Named Person of the Year by Twin Cities Business Magazine in 2018.
Appointed a Knight in the French Legion of Honor in 2016.
Named Retailer of the Year by Forbes in 2016.
Recipient of the 2015 US Sciences Po American Foundation Alumni Award.
Awarded the French National Order of Merit in 2009.
Selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, 1997–1999.

Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy
Author of The Heart of Business– Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

Hubert Joly is a senior lecturer in the General Management unit and the co-leader of several executive education programs for CEOs and senior executives, including the New CEO workshop, the CEO Gathering, the Life After CEO Workshop, Leading Global Businesses and Growing as a Purposeful Leader. He also designs and leads custom programs for companies focused on (1) helping them develop their next generation of leaders, and (2) “Putting Purpose to Work”, placing a Noble Purpose as the keystone of their strategy and culture, and creating an environment that can help them “unleash human magic” in support of that Purpose. His teaching and research are focused on the refoundation of business around purpose and people, leading in a multistakeholder era, and the involvement of business in societal matters.

Prior to joining the HBS faculty in 2020, Professor Joly was Chairman and CEO of Best Buy. He is currently a member of the board of directors of Johnson & Johnson and Ralph Lauren Corporation, a member of the International Advisory Board of HEC Paris, and a Trustee of the New York Public Library.

Joly has been recognized as one of the top 100 CEOs in the world by the Harvard Business Review, one of the top 30 CEOs in the world by Barron’s and one of the top 10 CEOs in the U.S. by Glassdoor. He has also been ranked as one the top 50 management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50 and received the organization’s 2021 Leadership Award.

He is the author of the best-selling book The Heart of Business – Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism, and of a dozen articles published in Harvard Business Review on the topic of Purpose and “Human Magic.”

For Professor Joly’s personal page, click here.

Featured Work
The Heart of Business—Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism

How to unleash “human magic" and achieve improbable results.

Having recently stepped down as Chairman and CEO of Best Buy, Joly shares the leadership principles – illustrated by multiple vivid and concrete stories -- that underpinned the remarkable resurgence of Best Buy and that he believes are at the heart of business: pursue a noble purpose, put people at the center, embrace all stakeholders, and treat profit as an outcome.

There was a time when many would call this a soft philosophy. But times have changed. The world and business are facing unprecedented challenges. Business can be, in fact needs to be a force for good. In 2019, Best Buy and 180 other companies signed the momentous Business Roundtable statement in support of stakeholder capitalism, highlighting that you can do well by doing good. The Covid-19 pandemic further pushed many businesses to lead from a place of purpose and with humanity.

Joly himself transformed from a hard-charging, deeply analytical McKinsey consultant to a leader who believes in what he calls human magic—or how to mobilize people to give their best, which translates into extraordinary performance.

Joly shares how so much of what he initially learned about management is either dated, incomplete, or simply wrong. Drawing from multiple sources of inspiration as well as his rich experience, he offers a set of essential leadership principles and provides concrete advice on how to turn them into action — including how to turn around a business without everyone hating you, how to develop and implement a strategy in a way that truly inspires and mobilizes, how to concretely embrace and align all stakeholders around a noble purpose, how to unleash human magic and create outcomes that defy logic, and how to become a great leader by pursuing a noble purpose and embracing your humanity.

This is not a revolt, but a revolution. Joly’s principles helped transformed Best Buy and other companies he led. Even more importantly, they are a major contribution to the necessary re-foundation of business and capitalism around purpose and humanity.

 

Books
Book Chapters
Journal Articles
Cases and Teaching Materials
Presentations
Other Publications and Materials
Awards & Honors
Included on the 2023 Thinkers50 list—a list of the world's most influential management thinkers.
Recipient of the 2023 Greenhill Award for Outstanding Service to the HBS Community.
Recipient of 2022 Stanley Hoffman Award from Sciences Po American Foundation.
Winner of the 2021 Thinkers50 Leadership Award.
Included on the 2021 Thinkers50 list—a list of the world's most influential management thinkers.
Named HEC Paris Person of the Year in 2020.
Awarded the Deming Cup for Operational Excellence in 2019.
Named one of the Top 10 CEOs in the United States by Glassdoor in 2019.
Named one of the Top 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World by Harvard Business Review in 2018.
Named one of the Top 30 CEOs in the World by Barron’s in 2018.
Inducted into the Junior Achievement of the Upper-Midwest Business Hall of Fame in 2018.
Named Person of the Year by Twin Cities Business Magazine in 2018.
Appointed a Knight in the French Legion of Honor in 2016.
Named Retailer of the Year by Forbes in 2016.
Recipient of the 2015 US Sciences Po American Foundation Alumni Award.
Awarded the French National Order of Merit in 2009.
Selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, 1997–1999.
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