Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia’s CEO after 33 years; finance chief Colette Kress runs the Santa Clara chipmaker for now

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Santa Clara’s Nvidia 33 years ago and built it into the leading maker of the chips that power artificial intelligence, or AI, has resigned as chief executive and left its board, the company said Nov. 12.  Colette Kress, 59, Nvidia’s chief financial officer since 2013, is interim CEO while the board searches inside and outside the company for a permanent one, according to Nvidia’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The board said it expects Nvidia’s “operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.”  Investors were less sure at first:  Nvidia shares fell more than 10% shortly after Thursday’s opening bell, then closed down 4.34% at $166.19, according to Yahoo Finance market data.

Why he left

Nvidia’s announcement gives no reason.  On Nov. 8, Huang told employees in an email that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologized.  The same day, the board opened an independent investigation into reports that he was “the target of a foreign intelligence effort,” saying it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised.  On Nov. 10, its independent directors hired Joon H. Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and his law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to lead the inquiry.

News reports have linked Huang to a businesswoman described as a Chinese intelligence asset.  The chairmen of three House committees, including Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast, asked Huang in a letter announced Nov. 5 to attend a closed-door briefing on Nov. 18 about his contacts with her and Nvidia’s safeguards against foreign spying.  The committee had not posted any reply from Huang as of Thursday evening.

Who runs Nvidia now

Kress keeps her finance job while serving as interim CEO.  The board’s new chair, Harvey C. Jones, said she “has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business.”

Kress said in the announcement that she is “committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years.”  She signed Thursday’s SEC filing with her new title.

Nvidia hired Kress in September 2013 after what Huang called an extensive search; Karen Burns, the company’s corporate controller, had been interim finance chief.  At the time, Huang said Kress brought “fantastic experience, excellent financial management skills and deep industry knowledge,” according to Nvidia’s 2013 announcement.

She arrived when Nvidia’s business centered on graphics chips, led by PC gaming.  In the fiscal year that ended in January 2014, Nvidia had revenue of $4.13 billion.  In the fiscal year that ended in January 2026, revenue was $215.9 billion, according to company results.

Kress spent nearly 25 years in finance at technology companies before Nvidia, according to her company biography and SEC filings:

• Chipmaker Texas Instruments:  eight years in a range of finance jobs.
• Microsoft, 1997 to 2010:  senior roles in corporate planning and finance, and, starting in 2006, finance chief of the Server and Tools division.
• Cisco Systems, 2010 to 2013:  senior vice president and finance chief of the San Jose networking company’s Business Technology and Operations Finance group, responsible for financial strategy, planning, reporting and business development for all business segments, engineering and operations.

She has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.  Arizona’s Eller College of Management, which lists her as a 1989 graduate, named her its 2020 Bob Lusch Executive of the Year; the luncheon in her honor was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nvidia’s 2013 offer letter set her starting base salary at $500,000, with $2.5 million in signing and first-anniversary bonuses and 220,000 restricted stock units.  For the fiscal year that ended in January 2026, Nvidia reported her total pay at $14.3 million, including a base salary of $898,577.  The company’s 2026 proxy statement listed her as owning about 4.4 million Nvidia shares, the most of any executive after Huang.

Huang, 63, owned about 870.6 million shares, or 3.58% of the company, the same filing shows.

Why Jones is the first chair

Nvidia’s announcement calls Jones, 73, its “first-ever” board chair.  The board had never had one:  every proxy statement Nvidia has filed with the SEC since 2001 lists no chair.  Neither the announcement nor the filing says why the board created the job now.

Instead, Nvidia used a lead director, an independent board member who does not work for the company, to keep watch on management.  Having a lead director “rather than a chairperson” gives each member “an equal voice,” the 2026 proxy statement says.

Huang, as CEO, was mainly responsible for board agendas and ran the meetings he attended, Nvidia’s 2010 and 2017 proxies say.  The lead director ran closed sessions of the independent directors without him, presided when he was absent and was their go-between with him on sensitive issues, according to the 2026 proxy.  Company rules let the board name a chair at any time; if it does not, independent directors must pick a lead director each year.

Four people have held that job, according to the proxies:  retired Cooley law partner James Gaither, starting in 2004; former Avid Technology CEO William Miller, from 2009; former Gilead Sciences executive Mark Perry, from 2018; and Stephen Neal, Cooley’s chairman emeritus, since 2023.  Nvidia’s Nov. 12 filing does not say whether Neal keeps the role.

Jones, a director since 1993, is a former CEO of Sunnyvale chip-design software maker Synopsys.

What’s next

Nvidia will still report quarterly results Tuesday, Nov. 17, at about 1:20 p.m. PT, with a call for investors at 2 p.m.

Source:  Nvidia news release, “NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition,” Nov. 12, 2026 and Form 8-K; Nvidia biography of Colette Kress; Nvidia’s 2013 Form 8-K and 2013 announcement of her hiring; Nvidia 2026 proxy statement; Nvidia results for fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2026; University of Arizona Eller College of Management; Nvidia board statements of Nov. 8 and Nov. 10; Huang’s Nov. 8 email; House Foreign Affairs Committee, Nov. 5; Nvidia proxy statements of 2004, 2010, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2023 and 2026 (board leadership); Yahoo Finance.