CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO as chipmaker begins search for permanent successor
Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia, ending his 33-year reign over the world's leading AI chipmaker after revelations of extramarital affairs, including one with a woman suspected by US intelligence of spying for China.
Nvidia announced Thursday that Huang, 63, had stepped down as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while retaining her finance role, as the company searches for a permanent successor.
The board also named longtime director Harvey Jones, a former CEO of chip design software company Synopsys, as its first-ever chair.
The departure marks a dramatic reversal for Nvidia's board, which expressed confidence in Huang on Sunday while launching an independent investigation into whether his relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based data center operator Megaspeed International, had compromised US national security or company secrets.
The scandal escalated Wednesday when The New York Times reported that Huang had also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reported directly to him.
Nvidia has said it has no reason to believe national security or its confidential information was compromised. China has denied allegations that Alice Huang was a spy.
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and transformed it from a gaming graphics chipmaker into the dominant supplier of processors powering the global AI boom. His departure leaves the company without the executive who personally shaped its technology strategy, cultivated relationships with major customers and suppliers, and championed billions of dollars in AI infrastructure investments.
Nvidia shares plunged more than 10 percent in US premarket trading Thursday as investors weighed the risks of replacing one of the technology industry's most influential executives.
The board sought to reassure customers and investors that Nvidia's business would continue as planned.
"We expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption," Jones said in a statement.
Kress, Nvidia's CFO since 2013, pledged to build on Huang's legacy while maintaining the company's focus on customers and partners.
Her immediate challenge will be preserving Nvidia's technological lead and extensive AI partnerships while the board searches for a permanent chief executive. The company said it would consider both internal and external candidates.
The leadership shake-up also places renewed attention on Nvidia's relationships with South Korean partners, including Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, which supply critical memory chips for its AI processors.
Nvidia said its third-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings announcement would proceed as scheduled on Nov. 17.
mjh@heraldcorp.com
