Nvidia's New Chair Harvey Jones Takes On the CEO Search and Board Accountability

Nvidia's first-ever Chair of the Board is a man most of its employees probably didn't know well until this week. Harvey Jones has sat on the board since 1993, the year Jensen Huang founded the company. Now he's the one steering what comes next, including the search for a permanent CEO after Huang's abrupt exit. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO.

The internal message announcing the change, according to leaked screenshots, opened with a note of steadiness. Jones told staff that "the Board takes seriously our duty as steward of this great company." That's a reassuring line, and it's the kind of tone people who know him say he's known for. The harder question is whether the board that is now promising stability had a hand in the problems that led to this moment.

Who Jones is

Jones, 73, isn't a household name, but his résumé runs deep. According to his Nvidia board biography, he has worked in technology and semiconductors for more than 30 years. He founded two companies, ran another, and has been managing partner of the investment firm Square Wave Ventures since 2004. He co-founded the processor company Tensilica with Chris Rowen in 1997, and he led Synopsys from 1987 to 1998. A Forbes profile credits his billionaire status "almost entirely" to his Nvidia director compensation, along with a 0.03% stake in the company.

The people who've worked with him describe a particular style. Penny Herscher, who has known Jones since 1984 and once worked for him, calls him an "old school, conservative" figure and a "charming elder statesman" who is likely "very hard to ruffle." Rowen, his Tensilica co-founder, offers a more layered picture. He describes Jones as a gentleman with a "smooth polish," and then adds a warning for anyone who reads that polish as softness: beneath it is "a really bright, insightful, aggressive guy."

Rowen's account of their division of labor is useful context. He handled the technical leadership and mentoring, while Jones kept the team on track and gave people a sense of the bigger picture. "If he thought we were on the right track, people were instantly comforted," Rowen said. Chi-Foo Chan, who worked with Jones at Synopsys, described him in a 2019 Computer History Museum oral history as "a very persuasive guy," recalling how Jones recruited him to join the company.

The CEO search

Herscher expects Jones to lead the search. She hasn't spoken with him about it, and Nvidia hasn't commented, but she says that's how these processes usually run. Her view is shaped by sitting on three public company boards and co-founding The Chairs Circle, which runs educational programs for board chairs. Jones also sits on Nvidia's Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, a body that normally drives succession decisions. That makes his leadership of the process more likely, not less.

The timeline is probably measured in months, not weeks. Bloomberg reported this week that Nvidia has already engaged an outside firm to identify candidates. In a typical arrangement like this, the recruiter makes the first contact, and then the chair and the internal search committee speak with the strongest prospects. Herscher says Jones's industry network should give him plenty of names to work from.

Shareholders are hoping for a high-profile hire. Arm CEO Rene Haas has been mentioned as a possible successor. Separately, President Trump has suggested former Apple CEO Tim Cook could be a good pick. Whoever gets the job will need deep operational and product development experience to keep GPU supply moving, which is the business that drives Nvidia's value.

The accountability question

Jones's tenure is also the reason he's under scrutiny. He has been on the board for more than three decades, and reports about Huang's personal conduct raise a basic governance question: how did a risk of this size go unaddressed for so long? Three affairs are known as of this writing. The New York Times reported that Huang's relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care, was known inside the company and appears to conflict with its code of conduct. That code tells employees to "avoid situations where our actions create conflict," including through "personal relationships," and the board says it will promptly look into all reports of misconduct.

Reporting also indicates Huang had as many as 60 direct reports at one point and no clear successor or succession plan. Those are structural issues a board is expected to monitor, which is why the succession process now falls to a director who was part of that oversight.

Jonathan Tower, managing partner at the VC firm Catapult, put the tension plainly. "Jones may be the right person to steady the ship, but his longevity is both his greatest qualification and the strongest reason to scrutinize his leadership," he said. "The board cannot simply present itself as the solution without examining its role in creating the problem." Nvidia hasn't responded publicly to the questions about how the board handled the earlier reports. Until it does, that gap will shape how investors and employees judge the new chair.

My read: Jones looks like a sensible choice for a stabilizing role. His experience running a search and his network are real assets. But the search and the board's own review of what it knew, and when, are two separate tasks. The second one will show whether this board can be trusted to manage the next CEO's accountability, not just the transition.