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Julie Gilbert is a motivator. It’s her passion, and she’s found a way to do it professionally. In her current role at Best Buy Co., Inc., Gilbert leads retail training and leadership development, guides the company’s innovation engine and employee resource group, WOLF, and oversees the company’s strategy to increase its market share with female customers.
A seven-year company veteran, Gilbert is committed to growing the business by finding, growing and retaining great talent. She has demonstrated this commitment in her career with the creation and launch of new businesses for the companies with which she’s worked. She works to unlock the leader in every single Best Buy employee by overseeing teams which: develop and implement the training curriculum for Best Buy’s 100,000 U.S. store employees; leverage the lives and experiences of tens of thousands of female employees to transform Best Buy’s business; and lead a retail leadership forum designed to bring give high-potential employees the opportunity to partner with corporate support teams and take on new business initiatives for the company.
Somehow, between business deals and financial analysis, Gilbert unearthed her passion for empowering others and helping them learn to be leaders. For a long time, it was a side-project. Whenever she visited stores, she took time to learn about individual employees (especially women) who desired to do more and play a larger role in the organization. Once she began mentoring those employees, she saw them change personally and professionally. Not long after that realization, she founded Best Buy’s award-winning WOLF movement.
Most immediate, Gilbert was vice president of retail training, leadership development and women’s leadership forum (WOLF). Through her leadership in WOLF, Best Buy increased the number of female job applicants by 37 percent and reduced female employee turnover by 5.7 percent.
Previously, Gilbert served as vice president of customer centricity for Best Buy where she led the creation and partnership for Best Buy’s Magnolia Home Theatre store-within-a-store concept, now rolling out across the country. In her time as director of alliance development, she created and implemented several strategic relationships with key partners, including Virgin Mobile, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Sony. Prior to her time at Best Buy, she worked for Deloitte and Touche in New York and Minneapolis where she created several new businesses including one which she scaled nationally and built to become a top performance driver for the company.
Gilbert has presented motivational leadership workshops to tens of thousands of individuals. She also is active with Focus Hope, a non-profit training and development program in Detroit. She has been named one of Minnesota’s Women to Watch by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal and one of the 100 most successful women in business by Profiles in Diversity Journal magazine.
A South Dakota native, Gilbert earned her master’s degree in strategy and marketing and her bachelor’s degree in accounting, both with highest distinction, from the University of Minnesota. Outside of work, Gilbert maintains an active lifestyle including dance, aerobics, inline skating, bicycling and downhill skiing. She also enjoys writing and has been published internationally. | 