With Jensen Huang gone as chief executive and director, control of Nvidia now rests with its board, led by Harvey C. Jones, a 73-year-old director who has sat on it since 1993 and on Nov. 11 became the company's first board chair, according to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The same board is running an investigation into reports about Huang and a search for his permanent successor, with no timetable for either.

For investors in Asia, the group matters because it will choose the person who sets Nvidia's product road map and purchasing plans, which drive orders at foundries in Taiwan, memory makers in Korea and server assemblers across the region. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO while keeping her finance job, but the board decides who leads next.

The 10 directors who remain

With Huang's resignation from the board, Nvidia's investor relations site lists 10 directors:

• Harvey C. Jones, chair. Managing partner since 2004 of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office, the filing said. Nvidia's release said he was previously CEO and executive chairman of chip design software maker Synopsys.
• Tench Coxe, former managing director of Sutter Hill Ventures, on the board since 1993. His firm co-led Nvidia's $2 million funding round that year, The Next Web reported.
• Mark A. Stevens, managing partner of S-Cubed Capital. He joined the board after the 1993 round that Sequoia and Sutter Hill led, left in 2006 and returned in 2008, according to The Next Web.
• A. Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates and a former Synopsys finance chief, a director since 1997.
• Stephen C. Neal, chairman emeritus and senior counsel at law firm Cooley, which The Next Web, citing CNBC, said set up Nvidia in 1993 and has been its main outside counsel since. He had been lead independent director, the role Nvidia used instead of a chair.
• Suzanne Nora Johnson, former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs.
• Dawn Hudson, former chief marketing officer of the National Football League and former CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America.
• Melissa B. Lora, former president of Taco Bell International.
• John O. Dabiri, professor of aeronautics and mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.
• Aarti Shah, former chief information and digital officer at Eli Lilly.

The directors' average tenure is almost 15 years, nearly twice the S&P 500 norm, The Next Web reported, citing Semafor. The Next Web also said no director is a current or former S&P 500 chief executive or has national security experience. Jones and Seawell held Nvidia shares worth a combined $1.86 billion as of June, the publication reported, citing The New York Times.

Huang told Bloomberg that he had not taken the chairman role so that the CEO could be held accountable, The Next Web said. Creating the post now hands formal leadership to a director who has watched the company since its founding year.

The investigation

The board opened an independent investigation on Nov. 8 into reports that Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence effort, after he admitted to employees that he had been unfaithful to his wife. The reports concern Alice Huang, a former executive of Singapore-based customer Megaspeed. Neither has been charged, and China has rejected the spying claims.

On Nov. 10 the independent directors hired Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, The Next Web reported, citing CNBC. Before that hire, people familiar with the inquiry told the Financial Times that Neal would probably lead it, according to the same report. Nvidia has not publicly named the directors overseeing the review.

Neither the 8-K nor Nvidia's Nov. 12 release mentioned the investigation, and the board has not said whether it will continue now that Huang has left or whether findings will be published.

How the CEO search will work

The board said it has begun a search for a permanent CEO and will look at internal and external candidates, according to the release. It gave no timeline. Jones said the board has "full confidence in Colette and the leadership team."

Nvidia has no obvious successor. The company's annual report flags succession planning as a risk without naming Huang as a key person, and its proxy says senior managers give the board a pool of promotion candidates, The Next Web reported. Huang has said he hoped the next CEO already worked at Nvidia, the publication said, citing Bloomberg. Asked last month whether his daughter Madison, a senior director of product marketing, was in line, Huang said he did not wish the job on her.

Before the resignation, The Information reported that headhunters may already be scouting the industry, The Standard said on Nov. 10. Names raised in that report and in other media coverage it cited were AMD CEO Lisa Su, Arm CEO Rene Haas, who previously worked at Nvidia for seven years, and Nvidia vice president Ian Buck. Kress was described as a possible interim choice rather than a long-term plan. The report noted that rivalry between AMD and Nvidia, and Su's family ties to Huang, could complicate any approach. None of those executives has commented on the speculation, and Nvidia has not named any candidate.

The board's first public test comes on Tuesday, Nov. 17, when Nvidia reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results, its first under Kress as interim CEO, with a call at 2 p.m. Pacific time. Separately, House committee chairs say Huang is willing to brief them, though no date has been set.