Key Highlights

  • Huang said in March that more than 60 executives reported directly to him, an unusually flat structure.
  • Commentators have named Kress, CUDA lead Ian Buck, Arm's Rene Haas and AMD's Lisa Su among possible successors.
  • Kress, 59, has been Nvidia's finance chief since 2013 and became interim chief executive on Nov. 12.
  • Nvidia reports third-quarter results on Nov. 17, and House chairs requested a briefing from Huang for Nov. 18.

A Hard Job to Fill

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) disclosed on Nov. 12 that Jensen Huang had resigned as president, chief executive and director, effective immediately. Huang, 63, co-founded the company in 1993 and led it for more than three decades. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress became interim chief executive, and Harvey C. Jones was named the company's first board chair. The board said it is considering internal and external candidates, and it has not given a timeline.

Finding a successor is complicated by what Huang built around himself. He owns about 3.6% of Nvidia but holds no special voting shares, so the board, not the founder, decides. Even so, the company's culture, its relationships with customers and suppliers, and its standing in Washington grew around him. Reports said headhunters may already be scouting the semiconductor industry for candidates.

A Structure Built Around One Person

A second obstacle is structural. Huang said in a podcast appearance in March that more than 60 executives reported directly to him, far more than most chief executives manage. A successor would have to decide whether to keep that arrangement or rebuild the reporting lines. Nvidia has not described any plan.

Nvidia disclosed on Nov. 12 that its third-quarter results are scheduled for Nov. 17, as previously planned, and that Kress keeps her finance role while serving as interim chief executive.

The Names in Circulation

Analysts, academics and others have put forward a range of names. None has been designated by the company.

Kress, 59, has served as Nvidia's chief financial officer since 2013 and spent nearly 25 years in finance at Cisco and Microsoft before that. Commentators mostly describe her as an interim leader who already knows the Business and has ties to investors. Several note that her background is in finance rather than engineering.

Ian Buck led the development of CUDA, the software platform behind many AI applications, and has worked at Nvidia for about 22 years. He leads accelerated computing work and has been named as a possible longer-term internal candidate.

Rene Haas, chief executive of Arm Holdings, worked at Nvidia early in his career and dealt closely with Huang when Nvidia tried to acquire Arm, a deal that collapsed in 2022 after regulatory opposition. One analyst described him as an intriguing external possibility.

Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, is described as perhaps the only competitor capable of rivaling Nvidia, and credited with AMD's Revenue growth. She is a relative of Huang, and the competitive relationship would complicate any move.

Other outside names have come up as well. A Yale management professor suggested former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Tim Cook, who became executive chairman of Apple on Sept. 1. An analyst named former Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger and Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan as outside possibilities while noting obstacles. Executives at the cloud businesses of Google and Amazon, Thomas Kurian and Matt Garman, have also been mentioned.

What the Names Have in Common

The names fall into three groups. Insiders, Kress and Buck, know the company but are described as lacking either engineering depth or broad management experience. Outside chip executives, Haas and Su, understand the industry but run companies that deal with Nvidia as partner or rival. Executives from other technology companies bring management experience but not experience in running a chip company. No one name has been described as combining every quality that observers list.

Washington and the Calendar

Three House committee chairs, John Moolenaar, Brian Mast and Rick Crawford, asked Huang for a closed-door briefing on Nov. 18 about his interactions with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore company that buys Nvidia chips, and about Nvidia's security protocols. US intelligence agencies reportedly believe she worked for China, and China has rejected the accusations as unfounded. Nvidia's board opened an independent inquiry and said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. President Trump called Huang honorable at a White House briefing on Nov. 9.

What the Search Has to Reconcile

The candidate list shows how few people combine what the role has required. The executives with the deepest technical credentials have narrower management scale, those with operating and investor experience lack engineering depth, and those who have run large organizations either lead companies in related but different businesses or compete with Nvidia. The board also faces a structural decision, because few leaders could manage a reporting line of more than 60 people.

Interim Leadership gives the board time. Calendar events set the pace: the Nov. 17 Earnings report, the briefing that lawmakers requested for Nov. 18 and the outcome of the independent inquiry. Whether Nvidia names an insider or an outsider, and any change to the management structure, shows how much of Huang's network transfers to a successor. How customers and suppliers respond shows the same thing.