The Change Manager

Jean-Laurent Bonnafé has been adept at managing changes in his career and in the institution he has worked for.   Bonnafé was born in Albi, Toulouse. The young Frenchman at first followed the career of his father by taking an engineering degree. He graduated from one of France’s best schools, Ecole Polytechnique. Bonnafé then joined the government working in the Ministry of Industry as a Senior Officer and then moved to the Ministry of Trade and Industry as a Technical Advisor.

From the government Bonnafé changed career paths joining the private sector and getting into a banking career by joining BNP as a Senior Investment Banker in 1994. He became responsible for some of the BNP’s biggest corporate client and due to his potential was made Head of Strategy and Development in 1997.

In his new position he planned the daring double bid for Paribas and SoGen in 1999. BNP ended up getting Paribas although it had to drop its offer for SocGen.  Bonnafé then headed the post-merger and integration for BNP Paribas following the 2000 merger with Paribas.

With this integration experience he also led the integration of two other large bank acquisitions. These are exceptional achievements since the two banks were foreign ones. BNL, the Italian bank was integrated in 2006 and in 2009 Fortis, the Belgian Bank was integrated as well.

Bonnafé kept rising through the corporate ladder. He became a member of the BNP Paribas Executive Committee in 2002 and simultaneously appointed Head of French Retail Banking for Group.  Bonnafé was named Managing Director of BNL following the merger with BNP Paribas Group in 2006. Then in 2008, he became Chief Operating Officer for BNP Paribas and appointed Head of the Group’s Retail Banking activities.

More promotions came especially in the light of the merger with Fortis.  Then he was appointed Chief Executive Officer by the Board of Directors in December 2011. Now as head of one of Europe’s largest banks he is once again out to manage change. The bank had to reduce its asset size  for compliance and weed out bad debts. It has to focus on growth and Bonnafé is putting emphasis on the Asian market as we as the U.S. market to make BNP Paribas less dependent on the European market.

Given his past management of change there’s a very good chance he’ll succeed.