Jensen Huang Resigns as NVIDIA CEO; CFO Colette Kress Named Interim Chief, Harvey Jones Board Chair

NVIDIA Corp. said on Nov. 12, 2026, that co-founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board, effective immediately, ending a 33-year run at the head of the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker. The board named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress interim CEO, appointed longtime director Harvey C. Jones as the company's first chair and opened a search for a permanent successor five days before NVIDIA is due to report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results.

Leadership background

Huang co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and led it from a graphics card supplier for PC gaming into the main supplier of accelerated computing systems used to train and run artificial intelligence models. Until this week, he combined the roles of founder, president and CEO, and the board had never had a separate chair. That structure placed product strategy, customer relationships and the company's public identity with one executive for more than three decades.

The announcement did not give a reason for the resignation and did not address compensation or separation terms. In the days before, Huang publicly acknowledged personal misconduct, and the board said it had opened an independent review of reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort, according to Fortune and Al Jazeera. The board said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised, those outlets reported. Credence Research has not independently verified the underlying allegations.

Kress joined NVIDIA as CFO in September 2013, according to a company filing from that year. She previously served as senior vice president and CFO of Cisco Systems' Business Technology and Operations Finance organization, spent more than a decade at Microsoft, including as CFO of its Server and Tools division, and worked for about eight years in finance roles at Texas Instruments. Jones, the new chair, is a managing partner at Square Wave Ventures, Fortune reported. In the company's statement, Jones said the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team.

Industry implications

The change lands at a sensitive moment for AI infrastructure buyers. Hyperscalers, AI model developers, sovereign AI programs and neocloud operators are placing multiyear orders tied to NVIDIA's platform roadmap, including the Vera Rubin generation, rack-scale systems and the NVLink interconnect that a growing list of partners now license. Many of those commitments were negotiated with Huang personally, and his annual keynote cycle has long served as the industry's public timetable for new architectures.

NVIDIA said it expects operations, customer commitments and its product roadmap to continue without interruption. For customers, the practical test will come at the Nov. 17 earnings call, where investors and buyers will look for confirmation of delivery schedules and capacity plans. Keeping the finance chief in place as interim CEO signals continuity in guidance, supply contracts and capital allocation rather than a strategic reset.

The episode also raises governance questions that extend beyond one company. Several of the largest semiconductor and AI platform companies remain founder-led, and boards have faced pressure to formalize succession planning and separate the chair and CEO roles. NVIDIA's decision to create an independent chair for the first time follows that pattern.

Competitive and supply chain implications

NVIDIA sits at the center of a supply chain that runs from TSMC's advanced nodes and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate packaging to high-bandwidth memory from SK hynix, Samsung and Micron, substrate makers, server assemblers such as Foxconn and Quanta, and power and cooling suppliers. Those suppliers have expanded capacity based on multiyear volume signals from NVIDIA. An orderly interim arrangement reduces the near-term risk of order changes, but suppliers will watch whether a permanent CEO keeps the current annual product cadence.

Rivals including AMD, Intel and custom accelerator programs at Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta may use the transition to press customers on second-source strategies. Analysts quoted by Fortune said the change could disrupt NVIDIA's momentum, while noting that software portability is becoming a larger factor in buying decisions. NVIDIA's CUDA software ecosystem, developer base and system-level integration remain the core of its position, and none of those assets change with the leadership move.

Regional implications

In the United States, the transition comes as NVIDIA is central to federal AI and export-control policy, including licensing of advanced chips for overseas buyers. Huang had been a prominent voice in those discussions, and his successor will inherit relationships with Washington and with allied governments funding national AI computing programs.

In Taiwan, where Huang was born and where NVIDIA relies heavily on TSMC and a cluster of server and component makers, the change will be followed closely by partners whose investment plans assume continued growth in AI systems demand. In China, NVIDIA's access to customers depends on U.S. licensing decisions, and reports of a foreign intelligence review add a political dimension that the next CEO will need to manage. In Europe, Japan, South Korea and the Middle East, sovereign AI projects built on NVIDIA systems are likely to seek reassurance on delivery timelines.

What comes next

• Nov. 17, 2026: NVIDIA reports third-quarter fiscal 2027 results, its first public update under interim leadership.
• CEO search: the board will evaluate internal and external candidates; no timeline has been given.
• Further SEC filings may disclose separation terms and any changes to executive roles.
• Outcome of the board's independent review, as reported by media, and any related disclosures.
• Customer and supplier commentary on Vera Rubin and rack-scale system delivery schedules.

Sources

• NVIDIA: CEO transition announcement (SEC filing, Nov. 12, 2026)
• NVIDIA: Form 8-K on appointment of Colette Kress as CFO (2013)
• Fortune: Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigns, CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO
• Al Jazeera: Why did Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resign, and who is Colette Kress?

Image: NVIDIA headquarters in Santa Clara, California, by Coolcaesar via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and edited by Credence Research.