NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang to be Honored with the Yale Legend in Leadership Award

Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of NVIDIA, will receive the Yale Legend in Leadership Award at the Yale CEO Summit on June 10, which will take place virtually via Zoom. The award, conferred by the unanimous vote of representatives of Yale and past award winners, will be presented by Marc Benioff, founder, chair and CEO of Salesforce; Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell; and Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM.

Summit organizer Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at the Yale School of Management, commented:

“Jensen Huang is one of the most influential business leaders of our time — a visionary whose work has helped catalyze the global shift toward artificial intelligence. His leadership and innovation have played a defining role in advancing AI as a transformative force across industries. Few individuals have come to represent the potential and impact of this technology as clearly as Jensen.

His accomplishments building NVIDIA are truly breathtaking, especially given the daunting odds the company first faced. When Jensen founded NVIDIA in 1993, the promises of advanced computing were still merely remote fantasies, and skeptical experts doubted the viability and achievability of NVIDIA’s soaring vision. When the company invented the GPU in 1999, many experts remained skeptical, believing that NVIDIA’s products would never transcend a niche audience of specialty gamers who needed the highest quality computer graphics. Yet Jensen and his team not only proved all the naysayers wrong, but they have also powered the artificial intelligence revolution. NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform has enabled the most advanced AI models.

Already, accelerated computing and artificial intelligence have transformed the world’s industries and profoundly impacted every aspect of society, and we are still in the very early innings. NVIDIA’s technologies will continue to power medical breakthroughs, democratize access to knowledge and opportunity, and turbocharge economic growth and quality of life improvements for every person around the world.

The financial magnitude of NVIDIA’s business triumph is unprecedented. NVIDIA is now the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. Over the past three years, its stock has surged more than 10-fold, driven by explosive demand for accelerated computing and AI. Revenues have grown from roughly $27 billion in fiscal 2023 to over $130 billion in fiscal 2025.

There is no business leader active today who has made such a positive impact in ways big and small on so many lives around the world. I am proud to recognize this legend in his own time, Jensen Huang, with the Yale Legend in Leadership Award.”

Huang founded NVIDIA in 1993 and has served as president, CEO, and member of the board of directors since its inception.

Since its founding, NVIDIA has pioneered accelerated computing. Its invention of the GPU in 1999 transformed computer graphics, fueled the growth of PC gaming, and laid the foundation for modern AI. Today, NVIDIA is driving the global shift to accelerated computing and AI—powering AI factories and AI infrastructure that are reshaping every major industry and advancing technologies with far-reaching impact across society.

Huang has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a recipient of the Semiconductor Industry Association’s highest honor, the Robert N. Noyce Award; the IEEE Founder’s Medal; the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award; and honorary doctorate degrees from Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University, National Taiwan University, and Oregon State University. He has been named the world’s best CEO by Fortune and the Economist and one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people.

Prior to founding NVIDIA, Huang worked at LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices. He holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering degree from Oregon State University and a master of science in electrical engineering degree from Stanford University.

The Yale Legend in Leadership Award was created 35 years ago to honor current and former CEOs who serve as living legends to inspire chief executives across industries, sectors, and nations. Past recipients include: Glenn Fogel, president and CEO, Booking Holdings; Tim Cook, CEO, Apple; Larry Fink, chair and CEO, BlackRock; James Quincey, chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company; Marc Benioff, founder, chair and CEO, Salesforce; Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile; Ajay Banga, president of The World Bank; Arvind Krishna, chair and CEO of IBM; Steven Spielberg, filmmaker and chair of Amblin Partners; Darius Adamczyk, CEO of Honeywell; Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine; Doug Parker, chairman of American Airlines; Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer; Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson; Lynn Good, CEO, Duke Energy; Lisa Su, CEO, AMD; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID; Doug McMillon, CEO, Walmart; Arne Sorenson, CEO, Marriott International; Andrew J. Young, mayor (1982-1990), Atlanta, Georgia, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1977-1979); Brian C. Cornell, chair and CEO, Target Corporation; Ivan G. Seidenberg, chair and CEO, Verizon Communications; Ken Frazier, chair and CEO, Merck & Co.; Randall L. Stephenson, chairman and CEO, AT&T; Colin Powell, retired four-star U.S. Army General, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–93), and 65th U.S. Secretary of State (2001–05); Virginia M. (Ginni) Rometty, chairman, president, and CEO, IBM Corporation; Janet Yellen, U.S. secretary of the treasury; Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever PLC; Mary T. Barra, chairman and CEO of General Motors Company; Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO, Bank of America; David M. Rubenstein, co-Founder and co-Executive Chairman, The Carlyle Group; Leonard S. Schleifer, president and CEO, and George D. Yancopoulos, president and Chief Scientific Officer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals; Brian Roberts, CEO, Comcast; Marillyn Hewson, CEO, Lockheed Martin; Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase; and Ken Chenault, chair and CEO, American Express.

The summit theme is “Is Your AI Horse Ahead of the Cart? Ensuring AI Developments Don’t Outpace Your Strategic Advancements.”

Our partners and sponsors include: Atlas Merchant Capital, Deloitte, Evercore, Gladstone Place Partners, IBM, Joele Frank, Paul Weiss, and TD Bank Group.