Conferences·MPW SummitBest Buy’s CEO says growing spending power gap between affluent and poor ‘keeps me up at night’By Phil WahbaBy Phil WahbaSenior WriterPhil WahbaSenior WriterPhil Wahba is a senior writer at Fortune primarily focused on leadership coverage, with a prior focus on retail.SEE FULL BIO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14th, 2025 Washington, D.C., USA Most Powerful Women Summit 2025 12:20 – 12:40 PM CLARITY IN COMPLEXITY: A CONVERSATION WITH CORIE BARRY Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, ranked No.
30 on the 2025 MPW list, discusses navigating the dynamic tariff situation her complex global electronics supply chain relies on—plus the challenges of implementing AI into the customer experience and how consumers are spending today.
Corie Barry, Chief Executive Officer, Best Buy In conversation with: Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune Photograph by Stuart Isett/FortunePhotograph by Stuart Isett/FortuneUn luxury consumer goods brands such as Cartier or Louis Vuitton, Best Buy needs to appeal to a very wide swath of society.
Consumer spending patterns since the pandemic, especially the growing gap in spending power in the U.S. between the most affluent and the least, have the CEO of an electronics mass retailer worried.
“We’re seeing some dispersion between the high income earners and the low income earners,” Corie Barry told the Fortune Most Powerful Women summit on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
“If I just level up, that is bably what keeps me up at night.” Barry, CEO since 2019, stated that apximately 60% of the gross domestic duct depends on the spending of the most affluent segment of U.S.
society, double the percentage it was before the COVID pandemic.
“It makes it feel there’s really resiliency in the overall market, that’s an issue, because your lower-income consumers are really struggling,” she continued.
Those struggles include credit delinquencies and difficulty navigating inflation and high housing costs. “Anytime the entire economy is heavily reliant on a small, narrow population of people.
That is not good for the long-term health of the economy,” said Barry, whose company took in revenue of $43.5 billion last year.
The solution for Best Buy has been to offer a wider asment of more affordable items, allowing consumers to continue shopping there.
“How can we make sure we have something that will cater to you so that the answer isn’t, no, I can’t afford anything?” said Barry.
Impact of tariffs Of course, curing that broader asment has been made much more difficult by the tariffs imposed on many countries by the Trump administration since April.
With less than 10% of the world’s electronics being manufactured in the United States, Best Buy is particularly vulnerable among retailers to the tariff wars.
Barry said that at the start of the year, 55% of the goods Best Buy sells came from China, and that now that percentage is 35%, with Mexico and the U.S. picking up a greater .
One thing Barry says she learned from the COVID crisis was to be upfront with employees, who now number 85,000, the impact of such significant events beyond their control.
Notably, executives must ensure that there is not a constant state of alarm, all while remaining vigilant and responsive to the required changes in how to operate the .
“They can’t be worried every day the ups and downs of geopolitical policy,” Barry said. At the same time, executives should be transparent with the troops.
“Our people deserve to understand why we’re making the decisions we are, and we are incredibly transparent.”