Hubert Joly: From Sciences Po to Harvard Business School
About to publish his first book recounting how he put the company Best Buy back on its feet, the former CEO Hubert Joly, an alumnus of HEC and Sciences Po, is now a lecturer at Harvard Business School. This article is part of a series of portraits published in partnership with the Sciences Po American Foundation to show the diversity of Alumni careers throughout the world and especially in the US.
This article was written by Claire Wilson, student in the dual degree program between Sciences Po and Columbia University, and intern at the Sciences Po American Foundation.
Hubert Joly. (Copyrights: All rights reserved)
Hubert Joly is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, the former Chairman and CEO of Best Buy, and a Sciences Po alum. He 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. Best Buy seemed destined to fail in 2012 before Joly took over as CEO. Eight years later, Best Buy was transformed as Joly and his team rebuilt the company into one of the nation’s favorite employers and a sustainability leader, vastly increased customer satisfaction, and dramatically grew Best Buy’s stock price. Now, he is sharing his philosophy in his upcoming book, The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism.
After graduating from business school at HEC in Paris, Joly joined the Service Public program at Sciences Po, where he studied multidisciplinary subjects including economics and constitutional law. He remembers attending a program offered by Raymond Barre, the economist and former prime minister of France, who discussed his experiences working with Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time, to tame rampant inflation in the 1980s. After graduating from Sciences Po, Joly joined McKinsey and Company, working in offices in both Paris and the US. After a dozen years, he decided to leave McKinsey and began a career at the helm of businesses including EDS France, Vivendi Universal’s video game business, and travel and hospitality giant Carlson Companies.
““ If the planet is on fire, you cannot run a business, so as business leaders, we need to get involved in a much broader set of issues. “”
Joly credits Sciences Po with broadening his perspective and giving him a more expansive lens than just studying business. In the last few years, he says, the business world has evolved. “The scope has changed,” he says. “You need to deal with all of the stakeholders. If the planet is on fire, you cannot run a business, so as business leaders, we need to get involved in a much broader set of issues.” This holistic vision, he believes, dates back to his time at Sciences Po.
When asked for his advice for current Sciences Po students and young graduates, Joly reiterates the importance of acquiring knowledge and developing skills yet advises that it is equally important to “spend time defining what kind of life you want to live and what kind of leader you want to be.” A good exercise, says Joly, is to write a retirement speech. “Use that as your North Star for how you want to live your life now,” he adds. “What do you really care about? What drives you? What is the essence of what is important to you?”
““ It is equally important to spend time defining what kind of life you want to live and what kind of leader you want to be. “”
Joly’s upcoming book, The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism, will be published on May 4, 2021. The Heart of Business recounts the philosophy behind the resurgence of Best Buy, a company that was expected to fail in 2012 when Joly took over as CEO. Joly summarizes the philosophy, that businesses should “pursue a noble purpose, put people at the center, embrace all of the stakeholders, create an environment for everybody to be successful, and treat profit as an outcome, not the goal.”
Joly will join Evan Epstein, corporate governance expert and inaugural Executive Director of the Center for Business Law, in the upcoming Sciences Po American Foundation Alumni Webinar. On April 26 at 12pm ET, Joly and Epstein will discuss inclusive capitalism, the importance of leading with purpose, the role of a CEO, and Joly’s approach to leadership, in a time of uncertainty. To RSVP, follow this link.
