Best Buy CEO Corie Barry Navigates the Pandemic, Has Solid Net Worth

Electronics retailer Best Buy might have raised the minimum wage for employees last year, but a typical employee’s salary there doesn’t come close to that of Best Buy CEO Corie Barry. Her net worth is about $38 million.

According to Salary.com, Barry’s total compensation in 2021 as Best Buy's CEO was over $12 million. Besides her $927,692 salary, she also earned about $2.3 million in bonuses, $1.7 million in stock options, $6.9 million in stock, and another $86,102 from other types of compensation.

In comparison, the median pay for Best Buy employees is $30,542, Salary.com data shows. That puts Barry’s compensation 394 times higher than the median pay of Best Buy employees.

Best Buy increased the minimum wage for its employees last year to $15 per hour, Barry said in an Oct. 14 interview on the TODAY Show. When asked about the current staffing issues many companies are experiencing after the COVID-19 pandemic, Barry said that Best Buy was “in a really good position with our employees.”

“It’s not about wages, I think its actually about feeling like a valued employee. Our turnover is down versus two years ago pre-pandemic,” she told TODAY.

Barry was appointed as Best Buy's CEO in 2019. She first joined the company in 1999 and served in several financial and operational positions, including the role of CFO, before she took the top spot at the company.

“Under Corie’s leadership, Best Buy is driving toward being one of the best places to work in America, doubling our significant customer relationship events to 50 million and growing annual revenue to $50 billion by fiscal 2025,” the Best Buy website reads.

Barry also serves on the Best Buy board of directors as well as the board of directors for Domino’s Pizza and her alma mater, the College of St. Benedict.

On Oct. 14, Best Buy announced that it will kick off its Black Friday specials early this year. Stores will offer deals from Oct. 19–22 on everything from headphones to laptops and more. The company guarantees that prices won’t go lower before Black Friday.

Best Buy is also starting its Black Friday a week early on Nov. 19, the company said in a statement.

Despite the supply chain issues that have hurt other companies' inventory and driven up consumer prices, Best Buy is in a “relatively good inventory position,” Barry told TODAY.

Consumer electronics was one of the first industries to struggle with supply issues. So, the company did a lot of planning ahead for the holiday season, Barry said. Because of pre-planning, Best Buy is going into the holiday with 50 percent more inventory than last year, she said.

“We’ve been navigating this for almost 20 months,” she told TODAY. “We’ve been planning way ahead of time for the holidays.”

Barry says that she doesn’t see prices increasing unexpectedly, and items at Best Buy will continue to be priced competitively.

“If anything, there’s going to be great deals out there,” she said.