Born in 1957, Richard Viel is a graduate of École Supérieure d’Ingénieur en Génie Électrique and INSEAD.
He began his career at Dassault Électronique as an engineer before being appointed head of sales and marketing. He joined Hewlett Packard in 1988 as marketing director, then, in 1992, he became marketing and business development director at British Telecom in France. He was appointed Vice-President of Bull’s Telecoms Business Unit in 1996.
He joined Bouygues Telecom in December 1998 as Director of Customer Relations. He became Director of the Plan Segment in 2000 and Vice-President, Consumer Marketing in 2002. He was appointed Senior Vice-President, Business Services, Wholesale and Development in 2003. He was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Telecom in November 2007.
He was also appointed Head of Commercial Operations on 30 May 2013 with responsibility for all of Bouygues Telecom’s mobile and fixed market product lines
On 9 November 2018, Richard Viel was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Telecom. On 15 February 2021, he was appointed Chairman and CEO of Bouygues Telecom. Since 1 January 2022, he has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bouygues Telecom.