Key points
- NVIDIA's board opened an independent investigation on 8 November into reporting that founder and chief executive Jensen Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.
- Two days later the independent directors named their counsel — Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
- Ten of the eleven directors are independent. Huang is the only executive on the board, and the only director NVIDIA does not classify as independent.
On 8 November 2026, NVIDIA's board said it was opening an independent investigation after recent reporting that Jensen Huang, the company's founder and chief executive, had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, would oversee the review. The board said it had no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA's secrets were compromised, and that the inquiry would examine all available information.
The same statement said Huang fully supported the review and had committed to cooperating with it, and that the board retained confidence in him and his leadership team. It did not name the directors on the committee or the counsel they would retain.
On 10 November the independent directors filled in half of that. They said they had retained Joon H. Kim, a former acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to conduct the investigation. The membership of the committee itself has still not been disclosed.
That makes the composition of the board the useful thing to know. Whoever sits on the committee is drawn from the ten directors who are not Jensen Huang, and those ten are listed in full below, with the ages, tenures and committee seats NVIDIA reported in its 2026 proxy statement.
How this board is put together
NVIDIA has no chairperson. The company says this is deliberate — the structure “ensures that each member has an equal voice” — and in place of a chair it appoints an independent Lead Director, a role the independent directors reconsider every year. That role is held by Stephen C. Neal, a corporate lawyer whose career has largely been spent advising boards and special committees on exactly the kind of question NVIDIA's board is now facing.
There are three standing committees: Audit, Compensation, and Nominating and Corporate Governance. Every member of all three is independent, and the board designates three directors — Seawell, Jones and Lora — as audit committee financial experts. Huang sits on none of them.
The board has had eleven seats only since the middle of this year. On 7 May the directors voted to expand from ten to eleven and appointed Suzanne Nora Johnson to the new seat; her appointment took effect on 13 July, delayed by a prior commitment. A third of the independent directors have joined since 2020, while three — Coxe, Jones and Huang — have served since 1993.
| Director | Age | On the board since | Committee seats | Other public boards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tench Coxe | 68 | 1993 | Audit; Compensation | None |
| John O. Dabiri | 46 | 2020 | Compensation; Nominating & Governance | None |
| Jensen Huang | 63 | 1993 | None — chief executive | None |
| Dawn Hudson | 68 | 2013 | Compensation (chair) | None |
| Harvey C. Jones | 73 | 1993 | Audit; Nominating & Governance | None |
| Melissa B. Lora | 63 | 2023 | Audit; Nominating & Governance | Conagra Brands |
| Stephen C. Neal | 77 | 2019 | Nominating & Governance (chair); Lead Director | None |
| A. Brooke Seawell | 78 | 1997 | Audit (chair) | Tenable Holdings |
| Aarti Shah | 61 | 2020 | Audit; Compensation | Sandoz Group |
| Mark A. Stevens | 66 | 2008 | Compensation; Nominating & Governance | None |
| Suzanne Nora Johnson | 68 | 13 Jul 2026 | Audit | Pfizer |
The eleven directors
Tench Coxe
Former Managing Director, Sutter Hill Ventures
Coxe was a managing director of Sutter Hill Ventures from 1989 to 2020, where he invested in information technology, and before that ran marketing at Digital Communication Associates. He has sat on NVIDIA's board since 1993 and was a director of Artisan Partners Asset Management from 1995 until 2025.
Other current public company boardsNone
John O. Dabiri
Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
Dabiri holds the Centennial chair in aeronautics and mechanical engineering at Caltech and has won the National Medal of Science, a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman Award. He served on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology from 2021 to January 2025. At 46 he is the youngest director by fifteen years.
Other current public company boardsNone
Jensen Huang
Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, NVIDIA
Huang founded NVIDIA in 1993 and has been its president and chief executive ever since, taking it from a startup to the largest supplier of accelerated computing hardware in the world. He sits on no committee, and he is the only director the company does not classify as independent. The review announced on 8 November concerns reporting about him.
Other current public company boardsNone
Dawn Hudson
Former Chief Marketing Officer, National Football League; former CEO, Pepsi-Cola North America
Hudson was chief marketing officer of the National Football League from 2014 to 2018 and before that ran Pepsi-Cola North America, first as president and then as chief executive. She chairs the committee that sets what Huang and his senior team are paid, and was a director of the Interpublic Group from 2011 until 2025.
Other current public company boardsNone
Harvey C. Jones
Managing Partner, Square Wave Ventures
Jones co-founded Daisy Systems in 1981 and led Synopsys from 1987 to 1998, as chief executive and then executive chairman, before co-founding the processor-licensing company Tensilica. He has run the family office Square Wave Ventures since 2004, and is one of three directors NVIDIA designates an audit committee financial expert.
Other current public company boardsNone
Melissa B. Lora
Former President, Taco Bell International
Lora spent 31 years at Taco Bell, retiring in 2018 as president of its international business after a spell as global chief financial and development officer. She chairs the nominating and corporate governance committee at Conagra Brands and was lead independent director of KB Home until 2024. She is the newest director other than Suzanne Nora Johnson.
Other current public company boardsConagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE: CAG), since 2019
Stephen C. Neal
Chairman Emeritus and Senior Counsel, Cooley LLP
Neal is chairman emeritus and senior counsel of Cooley, where he was chief executive from 2001 to 2008, and has spent his career as a trial lawyer advising boards, special committees and individual directors on governance. NVIDIA has no chairperson: Neal holds the independent lead director role instead. He was chairman of Levi Strauss from 2011 to 2021.
Other current public company boardsNone
A. Brooke Seawell
Venture Partner, New Enterprise Associates
Seawell has been a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates since 2005 and was chief financial officer of Synopsys from 1991 to 1997. He chairs the Audit Committee, which oversees financial reporting and the outside auditor, and in 2024 the National Association of Corporate Directors named him one of the hundred best directors in the country. At 78 he is the longest-tenured independent director after the 1993 group.
Other current public company boardsTenable Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: TENB), since 2017
Aarti Shah
Former Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer, Eli Lilly and Company
Shah spent 27 years at Eli Lilly, joining as a statistician and leaving in 2021 as senior vice president and chief information and digital officer. She holds a doctorate in applied statistics and brings the board its cybersecurity and data-science background. She has served on the board of the generic drugmaker Sandoz since 2023.
Other current public company boardsSandoz Group AG (SIX: SDZ), since 2023
Mark A. Stevens
Managing Partner, S-Cubed Capital
Stevens was a managing partner of Sequoia Capital from 1993 to 2011 and has run the family office S-Cubed Capital since 2012; earlier he worked in technical sales at Intel. He is the only director to have served twice — on the board from 1993 to 2006, then back from 2008.
Other current public company boardsNone
Suzanne Nora Johnson
Former Vice Chairman, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Nora Johnson spent two decades at Goldman Sachs, where she was vice chairman and led the Global Markets Institute, global research and global healthcare. She is the eleventh seat: the board voted on 7 May to expand from ten directors to eleven, and her appointment took effect on 13 July. She recently stepped down as board chair of Intuit, where she had served since 2007.
Other current public company boardsPfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), where she chairs the audit committee
Portraits: official photographs published by California Institute of Technology (Dabiri); NVIDIA (Huang, Lora, Shah); Modern Times Group MTG AB (Hudson); Cooley LLP (Neal); New Enterprise Associates (Seawell); USC Trojan Family Magazine (Stevens); Pfizer Inc. (Johnson). Tench Coxe and Harvey C. Jones, who have served since 1993, are shown from publicity headshots; NVIDIA issues no portrait of either.
What is still unknown
Three things have not been disclosed. The board has not said which of its independent directors sit on the committee overseeing the investigation. It has not said what the review covers beyond “all available information,” or when it expects to finish. And it has not said what reporting prompted it, beyond describing it as reporting that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.
The board said it would provide further updates as appropriate. Ages and committee seats above are as of NVIDIA's 2026 proxy statement; the eleven-seat expansion and Nora Johnson's start date are from the company's 8 May announcement and the same proxy.
Sources. Statement From NVIDIA Board of Directors, 8 November 2026. Statement From the Independent Members of the NVIDIA Board, 10 November 2026. NVIDIA Corporation, Schedule 14A, filed 12 May 2026. NVIDIA Names Suzanne Nora Johnson to Board of Directors, 8 May 2026. NVIDIA Investor Relations, Committee Composition.