A. Brooke Seawell

Seawell holds a BA in economics and an MBA in finance from Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry. From 1991 to 1997 he was senior vice president and chief financial officer of Synopsys, the electronic design automation software company, and from 1997 to 1998 executive vice president of NetDynamics, an application server software company later acquired by Sun Microsystems.⁠[1]

NEA’s profile states that he had a 25-year career as an operating executive before turning to venture investing; he says he was a founder or operating executive at four technology companies, three of which went public and the fourth of which he sold to Sun Microsystems.⁠[2]

Seawell has been an NVIDIA director since 1997. NVIDIA’s May 2026 proxy statement gave his age as 78, listed him as chair of the audit committee and identified him as an audit committee financial expert.⁠[3]

From 2000 to 2005 he was a partner at Technology Crossover Ventures.⁠[1]

In 2005 he joined New Enterprise Associates as a venture partner, focusing on software, systems and internet investments. NEA’s profile states that as a founder, officer, investor or director he has been directly involved in 12 IPOs and 13 strategic acquisitions, and that he has chaired the audit committees of eight public companies.⁠[2]

In his NEA interview he said he wants founders to describe their partnership with him as “Constructive,” and that resilience is one of the most common attributes of successful founders.⁠[2]

On November 8, 2026, the NVIDIA board began an independent investigation in light of reporting that founder and CEO Jensen HuangJensen HuangJensen Huang is a co-founder of NVIDIA who served as its president, chief executive officer, and a director from the company’s founding in 1993 until he resigned from those positions in November 2026. He has a background in electrical engineering education and the semiconductor industry, and under his leadership NVIDIA’s business expanded from graphics chips to GPU general-purpose computing, artificial intelligence, and data center computing platforms.Open the full entry had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, overseen by a committee of independent directors assisted by outside independent counsel; the board said it had no reason to believe that national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised. On November 10, the independent directors announced that they had retained Joon H. Kim, former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct the investigation.⁠[4][5]

On November 11, the board accepted Jensen Huang’s resignation as president, chief executive officer and director, appointed Colette KressColette KressColette Kress is an American business executive who has been executive vice president and chief financial officer of NVIDIA since September 2013 and, since November 2026, also its interim chief executive officer following the resignation of Jensen Huang; she previously held finance positions at Texas Instruments, Microsoft and Cisco.Open the full entry interim chief executive officer and named Harvey C. JonesHarvey C. JonesHarvey C. Jones is an American entrepreneur and investor in electronic design automation who co-founded Daisy Systems in 1981, led Synopsys from 1987 to 1998 and co-founded Tensilica in 1997. An NVIDIA director since 1993, he became NVIDIA’s first-ever chair of the board on November 11, 2026.Open the full entry the company’s first-ever chair of the board; the company announced the changes on November 12.⁠[6][7]

He serves on the boards of the cybersecurity company Tenable (since 2017) and one private company, and previously served as a director and audit chair of Informatica (1997–2015), Glu Mobile (2006–2014), Tableau Software (2011–2019) and Eargo (2020–2022). In 2024 the National Association of Corporate Directors named him one of the top 100 directors in the nation. He has also served on the Stanford University Athletic Board and the Management Board of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.⁠[3][1]

NEA’s profile states that he serves as a director and audit committee chair of NVIDIA, Tenable and GoodLeap.⁠[2]

NVIDIA: Official website: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8]

Synopsys: Official website: https://www.synopsys.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

New Enterprise Associates: Official website: https://www.nea.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

Tenable: Official website: https://www.tenable.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-seawell-89511a18/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]