Bob Willett has come a long way since he started his career almost 40 years ago as a store manager at Marks & Spencer. If Best Buy's joint venture with Carphone Warehouse goes according to plan, Mr Willett will be spending more time in the UK.

The British-born Mr Willett, 60, spearheaded Best Buy's expansion into China after becoming head of Best Buy International, the wing of the US-based retailer concerned with operations abroad.

Until late 2006, the international part of Best Buy consisted of a few stores in Canada. The purchase of the 142-store Five Star Appliance chain in China was the start of a programme of global expansion, of which yesterday's £1 billion Carphone Warehouse deal becomes the latest chapter. Best Buy International has bought a 50 per cent stake in Carphone's retail operations.

Europe may prove a tougher nut to crack, with consumers already saturated with cheap electronic goods and wallets becoming increasingly empty thanks to high oil and food prices.

The Carphone deal will give Best Buy a foothold in nine countries including the UK, France, Spain and Germany, with stores being opened as soon as next year. Best Buy has also opened pilot stores in Mexico and Turkey.

The company models its supply chain on Tesco, with huge stores displaying its distinctive yellow tag, and has around 17 per cent of the consumer electronics market in the US and Canada.

As well as his international duties Mr Willett bears the title of Chief Information Officer responsible for the company's IT. On the journey between the shopfloor at M&S and head of a division of Best Buy, the Fortune 100 company which he joined in 2004, Mr Willett worked as a consultant. He became global managing partner for Accenture in London, where he worked with retailers throughout the world on strategy review, business transformation, procurement and supply chain management, brand positioning, technology transformation and customer segmentation.

During his time at Accenture, he served as a special advisor to the Best Buy board, and as a partner on the “process to profits” initiative that Best Buy undertook in the late 1990s. He has also held executive positions at Woolworths, as well as several other UK retailers.

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