Why Nvidia turned to ‘strategic’ CFO Colette Kress to clean up Jensen Huang’s mess

Résumé détaillé

Kress will become Nvidia's interim CEO after the shock resignation of Jensen Huang.

The saga of Jensen Huang, his reported two affairs, and an alleged Chinese spy has come to, if not an end, at least a pause. Huang resigned this morning as CEO of Nvidia, the chipmaker he cofounded that is at the center of the global AI industry and made him a rock star CEO worth more than $140 billion. Stepping in to stop the bleeding as Nvidia’s share price falls is none other than Colette Kress, the company’s longtime CFO.

Kress joined Nvidia in 2013 and has been a key lieutenant at the company, with as much power as any exec might hope to have at a business that was run so completely by one man. (Huang reportedly had as many as 60 direct reports.) Before Nvidia, she held senior finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft. As Nvidia’s stock has soared over the past decade to a market cap that at its height surpassed $5 trillion, Kress has been a key face representing the company to Wall Street.

Now, she will become Nvidia’s interim CEO. The company’s board met on Wednesday evening and identified Kress to take over on an interim basis while it develops a permanent plan.

“Colette has helped lead Nvidia through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,” Harvey Jones, the newly-installed chair of Nvidia’s board of directors, said in a statement. “She is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing Nvidia’s strategy and advancing its technology roadmap.”

The choice speaks to Kress’s influence at Nvidia. As questions swirled around Huang’s future, one was whether anyone could possibly take over the business that was so closely linked to him, personally. At least in the short term, Nvidia’s board decided Kress can.

She will remain CFO while serving as interim CEO. She said in her own statement that Nvidia’s “strength has always come from its people.” And she reportedly told employees that she believes “deeply in this company.”

Kress has ranked on Fortune’s Most…

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