Tench Coxe

Coxe holds a BA in economics from Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private institution of higher education in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, it received a royal charter on December 13, 1769. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in Dartmouth College v. Woodward preserved its private status. Alongside undergraduate liberal arts education, Dartmouth includes the Geisel, Thayer, Tuck and Guarini schools. It enrolled 7,273 students in fall 2025 and held a $9 billion endowment at June 30, 2025. Sian Leah Beilock, in office since June 2023, remained president as of October 2026.Open the full entry and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Early in his career he was a corporate finance analyst at Lehman Brothers in New York, specializing in mergers and acquisitions and in debt and equity financing; he then served as director of marketing and MIS at Digital Communications Associates in Atlanta.⁠[1][2]

In 1987 he joined the venture capital firm Sutter Hill Ventures, where he was a managing director from 1989 through December 2020, focusing on investments in the information technology sector.⁠[2][1]

Coxe has been an NVIDIA director since 1993. In his oral history for the Computer History Museum, 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 recalled that NVIDIA raised its early funding from Sutter Hill and Sequoia.⁠[3][4]

NVIDIA’s May 2026 proxy statement gave his age as 68 and listed him as a member of the audit and compensation committees, stating that he brings expertise in financial and transactional analysis and perspectives on corporate strategy and emerging technology trends.⁠[3]

From January 1995 until Artisan Partners’ initial public offering in March 2013, Coxe was a member of the advisory committee of Artisan Partners Holdings; from February 2013 he served on the board of the listed Artisan Partners Asset Management, sitting on its compensation committee and its governance and sustainability committee. NVIDIA’s biography gives his directorship of the institutional money management firm as 1995 to 2025. He is also a former director of Mattersight and PINC Solutions.⁠[2][1]

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.⁠[5][6]

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. Jones the company’s first-ever chair of the board; the company announced the changes on November 12.⁠[7][8]

NVIDIA: Official website: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

Sutter Hill Ventures: Official website: https://shv.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

Artisan Partners: Official website: https://www.artisanpartners.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]