Bonnell began his career on the Thomson TO7, one of the earliest French-produced home computers, before founding Infogrames in June 1983. He founded this company at age 25 with Christophe Sapet and Thomas Schmider.
Bonnell was chairman and chief creative officer of the company from 1983 to 5 April 2007. He was also chief executive officer; a position he held from 1983 until a stockholder vote in 2003 showed a lack of confidence in his management of the company’s debts. He stepped down as CEO of Atari (while retaining his other two positions in IESA) in 2004 to be replaced by James Caparro, although he took up the position again on a temporary basis when Caparro resigned in June 2005. On 5 September 2006, David Pierce was appointed as new CEO of Atari.[1]
Bonnell spearheaded takeovers of many smaller (and a few larger) development studios over the 1980s and 1990s, most notably British development house Ocean Software and Atari, as well as GT Interactive, Accolade, Gremlin Graphics and Hasbro Interactive. These companies were integrated into the Infogrames infrastructure. Their brand names were abandoned, with the exception of Atari, which Bonnell felt had value. For this reason Infogrames began using the Atari brand on games published around Christmas 2001 and renamed itself to Atari, Inc. in the US in 2003. Beyond his involvement in Infogrames & Atari, Bonnell is also a shareholder in Lyon's Association football; the Olympique Lyonnais.[citation needed]
On 5 April 2007, Bonnell resigned from his positions at Atari and Infogrames.[2] On the day of the announcement of his departure IESA's shares jumped 24%.[3] In June 2008, he joined zSlide, a company based near Paris. As of 2013 he was working for Robopolis,[4] a Lyon-based robot distributor.
On 31 May 2012, Bonnell was elected as President of the EMLyon Business School Board.[5] EMLyon is a business school in Lyon, created in 1872.[citation needed]
In 2015, Bonnell served as the host and judge of The Apprentice : Qui décrochera le job ?, the French version of the global reality television franchise The Apprentice. Only two episodes of the show were aired, due to low ratings, although the entire season was streamed on demand. The show's producers did not blame Bonnell for the show's failure but rather an overall failure of the concept, though they admitted that the show would have done better if Bonnell were better-known.[6]
In parliament, Bonnnell serves on the Committee on Economic Affairs. In addition to his committee assignments, he is a member of the French-Azerbaijani Parliamentary Friendship Group and the French-Ukrainian Parliamentary Friendship Group.[9]
In June 2021, Bonnell announced that he would not stand in the 2022 elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[11]
Later career
In 2022, Bonnell was appointed by PresidentEmmanuel Macron to lead on the “France 2030” investment plan, a program including 15 billion euros ($16.9 billion) of new funding to speed up moves to a greener economy.[12][13]
