Abutaleb to Take Over as mindSHIFT CEO at the Beginning of 2014

Best Buy confirmed recently that Mona Abutaleb will take over as the mindSHIFT CEO following the retirement of Paul Chisholm at the end of this year. Abutaleb is currently president and COO of mindSHIFT, a cloud service provider that Best Buy acquired in 2011.

MindSHIFT Technologies Inc. has administrative headquarters in Waltham, MA and its technical operations headquarters in Sterling, VA. The company provides a combination of IT outsourcing and cloud service and claims on its website that it managed over 50,000 desktops and 144,000 users. Its cloud services include VoIP, applications and environments for both the desktop and server.

In November 2011, Best Buy acquired mindSHIFT for $167 million. It appears that the acquisition has been win-win for both companies. Best Buy sought to grow in the small to medium business IT services market with its Best Buy for Business services.

MindSHIFT remained largely autonomous while Best Buy provided it resources that helped it expand into other markets. It has expanded its cloud business and acquired White Glove Technologies, an Austin, Tex.-based managed services provider (MSP) in June 2012.

Best Buy is experiencing success after going through some struggles with competition from WalMart and Amazon. One of the adages in retail sales is that stores should avoid becoming a showroom for Amazon. Best Buy and Target were often cited as examples of this phenomenon.

The company’s stock recently traded at a 52-week high at $44.50 per share and was rated by Zacks as a Strong Buy. This is a significant improvement over its 52-week low of $11.20 per share in December 2012. Cost-cutting measures and a partnership that added Samsung Experience Shops to stores have proven successful. A similar partnership with Microsoft will add the Windows Store to U.S. and Canadian stores.

To many observers, the imminent promotion of Abutaleb to CEO does not come as a surprise; mindSHIFT seemed to have started preparing for the change three years ago when it named her president. She has a background in media as a former VP at Discovery Communications and had worked as an engineer at MCI before becoming a VP at WorldCom.

In the span of less than a year, Best Buy seems to have righted the proverbial ship with its retail business and its small and medium IT services, including mindSHIFT have been doing well. Assuming that Abutaleb contributed to mindSHIFT’s success as president, the company should continue to do well with her as CEO.