In the wake of former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s stunning departure from the company, employees received an email from someone most of them had probably never heard of before, even though he’d been affiliated with the company and its board for decades. His name is Harvey Jones, and he was writing to tell them that he’d just been appointed the company’s first-ever Chair of the Board, and that Nvidia CFO Colette Kress would serve as interim CEO.
“I’m writing to share an important update,” Jones’ note began, according to leaked screenshots of the email. He then tried to reassure employees no doubt left shaken by the past weeks’ revelations and the sudden departure of Jensen Huang, a man who co-founded the company and, until today, had been synonymous with its success. “The Board takes seriously our duty as steward of this great company,” Jones said.
That sense of calm and confidence is something Jones is known for, according to two longtime friends and former coworkers. Although Jones, 73, may not be a household name, he has worked in the technology industry, and in semiconductors, for over 30 years, according to his biography on the Nvidia website. He founded two companies, served as CEO of another, and since 2004 has been managing partner of investment firm Square Wave Ventures. He’s been on Nvidia’s board since 1993, the year Huang founded the company.
Jones comes from a successful Connecticut family—his full name is Harvey Jones III—with an “old school, conservative” way about him, Penny Herscher, who has known Jones since 1984 and used to work for him, tells Fortune. His father was a U.S. Army Colonel and church-goer, who then became a vice president at the Walt Disney World Company. Jones himself is a billionaire, which Forbes says is “almost entirely due to his Nvidia director’s compensation” and the fact that he owns 0.03% of the company.
“Harvey has a deep sense of history,” Chris Rowen, who cofounded the semiconductor processor company Tensilica with Jones in 1997, tells Fortune. He has a house on Nantucket and enjoys sailing classic yachts and fine art. “He has a smooth polish,” Rowen said. But Rowen also said that, despite outward appearances, there’s nothing effete about Jones. “He is such a gentleman, so articulate, and so well-sanded on the outside that you might worry there isn’t a deep fierceness and technical insight inside, but beneath that smooth exterior is a really bright, insightful, aggressive guy.”
At a time of great turbulence, Jones can offer Nvidia a “steady pair of hands” to “sort out” its next chapter, Herscher said. She described him as a “charming elder statesman” who at this point in his career is likely “very hard to ruffle.”
Jones and Rowen played distinct roles while leading the team at Tensilica. While Rowen played the role of technical leader and mentor, Jones was a skilled manager who helped keep the team on track. “His experience was such that he exuded this confidence and experience,” Rowan said. “If he thought we were on the right track, people were instantly comforted. He really communicated a sense of the larger picture and gave people a great deal of confidence that the wider world needed and approved of what we were doing.”
“He’s very strategic,” Herscher said. “I’m sure he’s right now figuring out the right strategy and steps going forward. He’s always looking around corners.”
Jones’ experience and board tenure also begs the question of how he failed to identify the enormous reputational risk of Huang’s affairs, three of which are known as of this writing. Huang also notoriously had many reports, up to 60 at one point, and no clear successor or succession planning.
“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,” Jonathan Tower, managing partner at the VC firm Catapult tells Fortune. “The board cannot simply present itself as the solution without examining its role in creating the problem.”
Case in point: Huang’s affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, was known inside the company, and appears to violate its code of conduct, The New York Times reported. The code of conduct instructs all employees to “avoid situations where our actions create conflict” including “personal relationships.” The board promises to promptly investigate all reports of misconduct. What happened?
Leading the search for Jensen Huang’s replacement
Jones will likely lead the process to select Nvidia’s next CEO, Herscher said, though she had not spoken to him about it directly, and Nvidia did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment. But that’s typically how the process would work in a situation like this, Herscher said, drawing on her knowledge from sitting on three public boards, and being the co-founder of The Chairs Circle, which runs educational programs for board chairs. The fact that Jones also sits on Nvidia’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee makes it even more likely that he will lead this process, she said, as usually that committee is involved in the process.
The search will likely take at least a few months, Herscher said. The board will likely hire a recruiter to identify candidates—something Bloomberg reported this week that Nvidia has already done. That firm will likely do the first outreach, Herscher said, and then Jones will speak to the most promising candidates, along with the rest of the internal search committee.
All signs point to Jones being an effective recruiter, with a wide net of contacts in the industry, Herscher said.
Longtime technology executive Chi-Foo Chan described Jones as “a very persuasive guy” in a 2019 oral history interview with the Computer History Museum, referring to the conversations the two had when Jones convinced Chan to join Synopsys, the electronics company Jones led from 1987 to 1998.
Nvidia shareholders are hoping those skills can wrangle a big fish to come in as Nvidia’s next CEO. Potential successors may include Rene Hass, who is currently the CEO of the chipmaker Arm. President Trump, who allegedly did not act on reports of Huang’s affair with a suspected Chinese spy, suggested former Apple CEO Tim Cook might be a good pick.
Whoever it is, they’ll need the right operational and product development chops to keep the GPUs flowing.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com