AI-generated infographic: nvidia chief executive transition. Its figures are taken from this article. Infographic: Grok.
By news editor
Nvidia's board of directors said Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board, effective immediately, and that Colette Kress, the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer, has agreed to serve as interim CEO. The announcement is dated November 12 and gives no reason for the resignation.
Kress will hold both jobs until a permanent successor is named. The board said it is starting a search and will consider internal and external candidates. It set no timeline. She has been chief financial officer since joining Nvidia in September 2013, after nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft, according to the release.
Directors also appointed Harvey C. Jones as the first chair of the board the company has had. The release describes Jones as an entrepreneur, technology executive and venture investor for more than 30 years who served as chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys.
For data center operators and cloud providers that buy Nvidia's processors and systems, the release addresses supply and schedules only in general terms. Jones said in it: "The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption." The release does not discuss specific products, delivery schedules or customer contracts.
In the same release, Kress said the company would keep advancing its work in accelerated computing and AI. She added: "Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders."
The resignation follows four days of statements from the company. On November 8 the board said it was opening an independent investigation after reporting that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort, overseen by a committee of independent directors with outside counsel. The board said then that it had no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, and that it had confidence in Huang and his leadership team.
Also on November 8, Nvidia published an email from Huang to employees in which he said he had been unfaithful to his wife, apologized to his family and to employees, and said he supported the investigation and would cooperate fully. On November 10 the board's independent members said they had retained Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct it. The November 12 release does not mention the investigation, and Nvidia's newsroom carries no findings from it.
Network World reports that Nvidia has operated without a chief operating officer and has no executive whose expertise spans its full product line. Jack Gold, president and principal analyst of J.Gold Associates, is quoted there as saying Huang structured the company around himself. Gold said: "There is some real risk that his leaving could hamper new technology deployments and create a bottleneck in R&D in a very fast-moving field that Nvidia has essentially been able to define through sheer tech prowess under his leadership."
That is not the board's account. Its release describes Kress as supported by an experienced leadership team that has executed Nvidia's strategy and advanced its technology roadmap.
Results for the fiscal 2027 third quarter are due on Tuesday, November 17, at approximately 1:20 p.m. PT, with an earnings call at 2 p.m. PT, and the release says that schedule is unchanged. The call would be the first scheduled occasion for Kress to take questions as interim CEO on the roadmap, customer commitments and the search for a successor.
Leave a Reply