Best Buy Confirms mindSHIFT CEO Transition, Succession

BestBuy’s (BBY) cloud and managed services business, called mindSHIFT, is undergoing a management transition. mindSHIFT President and COO Mona Abutaleb will succeed CEO Paul Chisholm, who will retire at the end of 2013, MSPmentor has learned.

BestBuy acquired mindSHIFT around November 2011. The managed and cloud services business has been ranked near the top of our MSPmentor 501 survey for several years. mindSHIFT has also popped up on our Top 100 Cloud Services Provider (CSP) list on Talkin’ Cloud.

In a prepared statement sent to MSPmentor, Chris Askew, president of Best Buy Services, announced:

“In my short time working with him, I have been nothing but impressed with the leadership qualities and dedication Paul so clearly exhibits.  For this and many other reasons, Paul will be missed by all of us, and like you, I do wish him the very best in this new stage of his life.

While no leadership change is easy, in this case we are extremely fortunate to have an excellent leader in the company with a great deal of experience to become the new CEO.  I am very pleased to announce that Mona Abutaleb, president and chief operating officer, will be promoted to CEO of mindSHIFT. Mona has earned the respect of employees, customers and suppliers, and her promotion is clear evidence of our commitment to maintain mindSHIFT’s culture of customer excellence.”

While parent Best Buy has been busy overhauling its retail strategy, mindSHIFT has continued to expand — acquiring White Glove Technologies in June 2012 while also ramping up its cloud services business.

At the same time, it was clear mindSHIFT was grooming Abutaleb to eventually succeed Chisholm. Back in 2010 before the Best Buy deal, Chisholm promoted Abutaleb from the COO post to the added title of president. The move expanded Abutaleb’s responsibilities to include revenue.

Overall, Best Buy has been quiet about mindSHIFT’s more recent performance. The company’s earnings calls and SEC filings typically don’t mention the cloud and managed services business, while the Geek Squad arm (consumer IT support) is a more familiar brand to company watchers.

Still, the data we’ve tracked — as part of our MSPmentor 501 and Talkin’ Cloud 100 research — suggests mindSHIFT remains among the largest players in the MSP and CSP markets.

Stay tuned: MSPmentor hopes to have more thoughts from Best Buy and mindSHIFT soon.