Frédéric Chesnais
| Frédéric Chesnais | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | French |
| Education | Institut d'études politiques de Paris |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, video game industry executive |
| Employer | Crypto Blockchain Industries (formerly Atari SA) |
| Title | President and chief executive officer, Crypto Blockchain Industries |
| Known for | Turnaround and ownership of Atari SA, 2013 to 2021 |
Frédéric Chesnais is a French entrepreneur working in the video game industry. He is president and chief executive officer of Crypto Blockchain Industries and a former chief executive officer of Atari SA, the video game group he controlled from 2013 to 2021.
Chesnais joined the Atari and Infogrames group in 2001 in a finance role and later rose to run parts of the business before acquiring control of the parent company during its 2013 financial crisis. He led a turnaround of Atari's finances before leaving the chief executive role in 2021.
Early life and education
Chesnais trained in finance and law and is a graduate of the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po Paris). Before entering the video game industry he worked as a financial adviser from 1986 to 1991, then as a lawyer specialising in mergers and acquisitions from 1991 to 1995. From 1995 to 2000 he worked for the bank Lazard.
Career
Infogrames and Atari Interactive, 2001 to 2007
Chesnais joined the Atari Group, then named Infogrames, in 2001, taking the roles of deputy director of operations and chief financial officer of the group. In July 2004 he became chief executive of Atari Interactive, a post he held until July 2007. That year he left to found his own production company, Game Group, and took charge of the games company MicroProse.
Acquisition of Atari, 2013
By the early 2010s the parent company was in serious financial difficulty under its majority shareholder, the fund BlueBay, which had ousted the group's former chairman Bruno Bonnell but could not keep the business solvent. In February 2013, BlueBay sold the company to Ker Ventures, a fund controlled by Chesnais. The acquisition was supported by the American fund Alden, which took 3.95 per cent of the capital, a stake that under the deal's financial terms could rise to as much as 44.2 per cent of the entrepreneurial capital.
As chairman and chief executive, Chesnais cut the workforce from about 200 employees to fewer than 20 and reduced his own salary to 1,000 euros a month. A year later he began paying himself 100,000 euros a month, applied retroactively. He said the aim had been to prove the business could be run better and that the Atari brand, though underused, still had potential for new products.
Turnaround and later ventures, 2014 to 2021
Under Chesnais, revenue rose from 2.3 million US dollars in the first nine months of the 2013 to 2014 financial year to 7.6 million US dollars in the same period of 2014 to 2015, more than tripling year on year. In March 2014 he launched the Atari Casino social gaming venture, and in 2015 he set out a turnaround strategy built around download games, massively multiplayer online games, mobile games and licensing of traditional franchises, including projects such as Alone in the Dark: Illumination and RollerCoaster Tycoon World. In June 2017 he confirmed that the company was developing a new games console based on PC technology, later released as the Atari VCS.
Since November 2015, Chesnais has also served on the advisory committee of the psychiatry department at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York.
In March 2020, Wade Rosen, founder of Ziggurat Interactive, became the company's board chairman after buying a substantial stake from Chesnais. In April 2021, Rosen replaced Chesnais as chief executive. Chesnais resigned but continued working with the company as a consultant through his new venture, Crypto Blockchain Industries. In March 2022, the company ended its remaining ties with Chesnais and Crypto Blockchain Industries.
Crypto Blockchain Industries
Chesnais is president and chief executive officer of Crypto Blockchain Industries, the company he founded around his consulting work after leaving the chief executive role at Atari.
Assessment
Chesnais's tenure is defined by the 2013 acquisition and subsequent turnaround: he took control of a business reduced to a fraction of its former workforce and, on the figures available, more than tripled its revenue within two years. That recovery was achieved through severe cost cutting, including a reduction from roughly 200 staff to fewer than 20. His decision to raise his own monthly pay from 1,000 euros to 100,000 euros within a year, applied retroactively, sits alongside those cuts as a notable feature of his stewardship. His time as chief executive ended in 2021 when a new investor bought a controlling stake and replaced him, and his consulting relationship with the company was fully terminated the following year.