Harvey C. Jones

Jones holds a BS in mathematics and computer sciences from Georgetown University and an MS in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his oral history for the Computer History Museum he recalled becoming enamored in high school with a teletype connection to a timesharing system, teaching himself BASIC, and selling his chemistry homework to classmates as his first entrepreneurial exercise.⁠[1][2]

He recalled joining Calma, an early computer-aided design company, as an application engineer; he later attended business school at MIT’s Sloan School with Calma paying his tuition, and returned to Calma afterward as vice president of marketing.⁠[2]

In 1981 Jones co-founded Daisy Systems, a computer-aided engineering company, ultimately serving as its president and CEO until 1987.⁠[1][3]

From 1987 to 1998 Jones led Synopsys, the electronic design automation company, serving as CEO for seven years and then as executive chairman. He recalled that one condition of financing for the team spinning out of General ElectricGE AerospaceGE Aerospace is the name under which General Electric Company operates, a jet engine maker listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GE.Open the full entry under Aart de Geus was bringing in commercial expertise and a CEO, which led to his joining.⁠[1][2]

Jones recalled that NVIDIA was founded by young engineers from Sun’s graphics group, who had been core engineers among Synopsys’s first customers; after the company raised money from Sutter Hill and Sequoia, the investors encouraged the founders to add an operating executive to the board, and the founders approached him to join in 1993.⁠[2][1]

He recalled that NVIDIA was in tough shape when MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry did not support its early architecture, and that 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 judged that fighting Microsoft would be “a hollow victory,” deciding instead, “If we can't beat them join them,” and cutting the company back to restart.⁠[2]

In 1997 he co-founded Tensilica, a technology IP company that developed and licensed high-performance embedded processing cores, and chaired its board from inception until its 2013 acquisition by Cadence Design Systems.⁠[1]

Since 2004 he has been managing partner of Square Wave VenturesSquare Wave VenturesSquare Wave Ventures is a private investment firm where NVIDIA board chair Harvey C. Jones has been managing partner since 2004; NVIDIA’s 2026 proxy statement describes it as a private family office.Open the full entry, described in NVIDIA’s proxy statement as a private family office and on NVIDIA’s board biography page as a private investment firm.⁠[3][1]

NVIDIA’s May 2026 proxy statement gave his age as 73, listed him on the audit committee and the nominating and corporate governance committee, and identified him as an audit committee financial expert.⁠[3]

On November 8, 2026, the NVIDIA board began an independent investigation, overseen by a committee of independent directors, in light of reporting that Jensen Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort; on November 10, the independent directors retained Joon H. Kim and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct it.⁠[4][5]

On November 11, the board accepted Huang’s resignation, 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 CEO and named Jones, 73, the company’s first-ever chair of the board; NVIDIA had previously used an independent lead director rather than a chairperson. In the November 12 announcement Jones said the board had full confidence in Kress and the leadership team and expected operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.⁠[6][7][3]

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]