Scott Wheway is embracing the challenge at Best Buy

When Scott Wheway left recently privatised Alliance Boots two years ago, he was expected to make a speedy return to the retail industry.

In the event, he went under the radar. Sure, he took up a non-executive role at insurance group Aviva, but the high-profile retail role that his peers expected him to be a shoo-in for failed to materialise. Until last week.

And Wheway’s return to the stores sector could hardly have been more dramatic. As chief operating officer of Best Buy International, he will oversee one of the most-anticipated debuts in recent retail history as the US giant parks its tanks on the lawns of established powers here such as DSGi and Comet.

But Wheway’s longer than expected absence from the industry is in keeping with the man. Driven, ambitious and self-confident, Wheway was clear about his goals and determined only to take a role that really appealed to him.

He is said to have been approached to run B&Q, for instance, but passed on the chance. Wheway says: “I did have one or two opportunities but Best Buy was the first thing to get me really excited. What was so appealing was its innovation and vision for where technology is going to take us.”

After starting his career on the shopfloor, Wheway, 42, rose through the ranks at Tesco where, one person says, his talent marked him out as one of the “golden children”. Eager to get on and uncertain about when the chance for a main board role might arise, Wheway decided to move from running Tesco’s Japanese business to Boots in 2005 to head retail operations. He is credited with improving the chain’s retail disciplines on his arrival.

A former colleague says: “Boots can be very insular. He came in from the outside and very quickly got people on side. He understood the values of the organisation – he didn’t come in and say: ‘This is how we did things at Tesco.’ He can be quite hard but he’s a very good people person.”

But following the acquisition of Alliance Boots by Stefano Pessina and private equity firm KKR, Wheway decided it was once again time to move. Friends say it was clear that Pessina would be in the driving seat and Wheway wanted a role where he could have more influence. “He’s not the sort of person who just wants to inherit someone else’s plan,” says one source.

At Best Buy he has the chance to create rather than inherit a legacy. As a fresh venture in this country – albeit as a division of an established world leader and in partnership with UK retailer Carphone Warehouse – there is an opportunity to change the retail landscape.

His experience at Boots and Tesco will help, observers say. From one he brings knowledge of a brand that has built unparalleled trust, from the other an obsession with customer focus.
Wheway says the need to “get close” to the customer was the biggest lesson he learned during his progression from the shopfloor to the boardroom.

But retail watchers express one note of caution. The details of how Best Buy and Carphone will run the European business are still being worked out. As in any partnership, there are some tensions. It would be wrong to think that the two retailers are at loggerheads, but there are likely to be a few spats along the way over exactly who does what. For someone like Wheway who likes to get on with the job and ensure clarity, that might create frustrations.

Unusually, not a single person contacted by Retail Week for this article had a bad word to say about Wheway. One source said: “He was a big retailer waiting to happen.” The industry verdict is that Best Buy has landed itself a star.