Colette Kress

Colette Kress became Nvidia's interim chief executive on November 12, 2026, when the board announced Jensen Huang's resignation as president, CEO and director. She remains executive vice president and chief financial officer while the board searches for a permanent successor. Analysts and former employees had named her as a possible successor before the resignation. Her case rests on continuity: she has spent 13 years as Nvidia's CFO and is familiar to investors through earnings calls and conference appearances. Board chair Harvey Jones has credited her understanding of the company's business, customers, operations and finances.

Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 after nearly 25 years in technology finance. She had spent eight years in finance positions at Texas Instruments before joining Microsoft in 1997. Across 13 years at Microsoft, she held corporate planning and finance roles, becoming CFO of its Server and Tools division in 2006. At Cisco, where she worked from 2010 to 2013, her responsibilities included financial strategy, planning, reporting and business development for all business segments, engineering and operations. At Nvidia, communicating with Wall Street became a central public duty. In May 2026, she introduced a reporting structure dividing the business into Data Center and Edge Computing.

The permanent appointment raises a question about the experience the board wants at the top. Kress's documented career has been in finance, and she lacks the engineering background central to Huang's leadership. That leaves a technical gap that would require support from other executives if the board prioritizes deep design expertise in its next leader. Her immediate workload is another constraint: she is running Nvidia while continuing as CFO. The board's search includes external candidates as well as internal executives, and the interim appointment does not settle the permanent choice. Kress has not said whether she wants the job permanently.