Bonita's love of football was courtesy of her refugee father from eastern Europe.

Her early career was principally in government where she worked at a senior executive level on measures including Australia’s first National HIV/AIDS Strategy, coordination of the Working Nation initiatives, the introduction of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, a national access and equity strategy for vocational education, and advancing high-end Australian food exports. She led Australian delegations at APEC and WHO forums.

Bonita has been active in football for a lifetime as a volunteer, and professionally with a national league club, state federation, as team operations manager for the men’s national team, the Socceroos, and as head of corporate and public affairs for Football Australia.

She was one of the first people in the world to speak out about the environment and culture within which world football and FIFA operated in the context of the 2018/2022 World Cup bidding contest. Bonita is known as a 'FIFA whistleblower', and advocated globally for independent governance reform of world football administration long before the famous 2015 FIFA arrests in Zurich.

Bonita is the founder and publisher of Fair Play Publishing and the Football Writers' Festival. She is Chairman of NBCCC.org.au, a local cancer charity, and Women in Football, and is a Board member of West Phil, the western Sydney Philharmonic. She writes about football occasionally at her blog, bonitamersiades.com.au.