Vice President of Social Impact
Best Buy
Andrea Wood is the Vice President of Social Impact at Best Buy. In this role, she leads Best Buy’s social impact initiatives focused on helping teens from disinvested communities prepare for the tech-reliant jobs of the future. Her team is responsible for Best Buy’s signature community programs, including Best Buy Teen Tech Centers and Geek Squad Academy. Working in lockstep with Best Buy’s Inclusion & Diversity and Talent Acquisition teams, these signature programs are a vital component of building a diverse talent pipeline for local communities and Best Buy.
Prior to coming to Best Buy, Andrea served in a leadership role on the Community Relations team at Target. She has also served in various corporate communications roles at Target and Travelers Insurance and has more than a decade of experience in program leadership and fundraising for local Twin Cities nonprofit organizations.
Andrea holds a master’s degree in Public Policy and Nonprofit Management from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and a B.A. in English Literature from Kalamazoo College. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Clubhouse Network in Boston, the YWCA in Minneapolis, the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, and the Advisory Board for the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
A native of Washington, D.C., Andrea has lived in Minneapolis for the past 25 years. She has two children and a husband who loves to take adventurous vacations. For fun, she teaches group fitness classes at Lifetime Fitness and enjoys outings with her all-women’s Cycle and Ski Club.
ACCP Meets Andrea Wood
I started my career in the nonprofit world, first as a program manager and then a development director. I’m grateful for that experience because it has made me much more empathetic to the challenges our nonprofit partners face each and every day. After 10 years in nonprofits, I moved into various corporate communications jobs, first at Travelers and then at Target. After tiring of communications, I moved on to the community relations team at Target, which ultimately led me to moving to Best Buy and leading the Social Impact team. I’ve been at Best Buy for nearly a decade and have loved every minute of it!
I’ve been teaching group fitness classes at LifeTime Fitness for almost 20 years. I wanted to be an actor growing up, but I gave up that dream to put food on the table. Group Fitness gives me a way to be on stage in front of people, entertaining them while they sweat!
The need for CSR to be integrated into other parts of the business in order to realize greater impact. This means leveraging cross-functional partnerships with groups like Diversity & Inclusion and Talent Acquisition. Social Impact/Corporate Philanthropy can no longer work in a silo. The expectations are too high.
Fleishman Is In Trouble – great read!
Greek yogurt (yum)
