Yves Bonnefont is a French industrialist and business leader. He was born on 18 December 1970 in Boulogne-Billancourt. He was Chief Executive Officer of DS Automobiles, the new premium brand of Groupe PSA that he founded in 2015 with his team until January 2020. Yves Bonnefont is now leading a study on potential synergies within a portfolio of brands for Groupe PSA.
Career
Yves Bonnefont graduated from the engineering school École Centrale Paris in 1993. He began his career at Groupe PSA in 1994 as a project manager at the PSA plant in Rennes before joining the PSA technical centre in Vélizy. In November 1997, he left Groupe PSA to manage the French automotive division of Arthur Andersen for three years. He then joined McKinsey & Company, where he became associate director in 2006 and managed international research in the automotive sector from 2007. In 2010, he was appointed a member of the global committee that elects new associates. In 2012, at the height of the crisis in the automotive market, he decided to once again join Groupe PSA, becoming strategy director and notably overseeing decision-making in changes in positioning of the brands Citroën and Peugeot. In April 2013, he was appointed deputy managing director of Citroën, assisting Frédéric Banzet. In 2014, he became the first chief executive officer of DS Automobiles when it was founded, at the instigation of Carlos Tavares. He created Groupe PSA's connected vehiclesbusiness unit, for which he was responsible until the mobility brand Free2Move was launched. He freely admits to being impatient. ‘When I’m told we need six months, I set a three-month period...,’ he said in the French periodical Challenges, in a portrait of him as part of a report on the creation of the DS Automobiles brand. His closest colleagues are Arnaud Ribault, Sales and Marketing Director, Marion David, Product Manager, and Thierry Métroz, Style Director. They work in the same space in Groupe PSA's new head office in Rueil-Malmaison. At a conference at the Salon des Entrepreneurs trade fair in Paris in February 2018, he explained that he personally meets up with all new recruits at DS Automobiles and spends one day per week on the ground, in plants, points of sale and research centres. He was the first CEO of a premium brand to have invested in Formula E, with the conquest of the 2018/2019 Drivers and Teams titles of Jean-Eric Vergne and DS TECHEETAH. In 2019, the brand recorded a 17% growth with DS 3 CROSSBACK and DS 7 CROSSBACK and an effective deployment in 38 countries around the world, with 400 points of sale. At the end of the year, DS 3 CROSSBACK E-TENSE and DS 7 CROSSBACK E-TENSE 4x4 plug-in hybrid versions are available. In January 2020, he was replaced at the head of DS Automobiles by Béatrice Foucher, former deputy director of the brand. He also pursues work in investment: until April 2018, he was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Trescal. Since then, he has continued to invest in start-ups, such as Iziwork, and serve on their boards.
