Mance Harmon is Co-Founder of Hedera and Chairman of the Board of Hashgraph (formerly Swirlds Labs). He co-founded the Hedera project with Dr. Leemon Baird, who invented the hashgraph consensus algorithm — a directed acyclic graph-based consensus mechanism that provides Hedera's core protocol properties. Harmon's contribution to the co-founding was on the business, product, and go-to-market side of the Hedera network.
Harmon served as CEO of Hedera from its founding through a 2022 organizational transition, when he and Baird moved into Swirlds Labs — the software company that develops the Hedera codebase and provides technical services to the Hedera Council. Swirlds Labs subsequently rebranded to Hashgraph. In August 2026, Harmon's professional profile identifies him as Chairman of the Board at Hashgraph.
His pre-Hedera career included leadership roles in enterprise technology and cybersecurity, with U.S. Air Force technology involvement and senior positions at technology companies. Specific education details and earlier role titles have not been independently confirmed from primary sources to the level required for precise publication. Hedera is governed by the Hedera Governing Council, a body of up to 39 enterprises from diverse sectors. The Council — not any individual founder — holds formal governance authority over the network's direction. HBAR is the native token of the Hedera network, used for transaction fees, network services, and staking. Hedera in 2026 focuses on tokenization, stablecoins, enterprise applications, and AI data trust use cases.
