Nvidia’s new chairman Harvey Jones is a ‘charming elder statesman’ set to lead the search for the next CEO. But did he enable the current crisis?

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Harvey Jones has been on the Nvidia board since 1993. Is he the right person to ride out the coming storm, or responsible for causing it?

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…

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