NVIDIA Puts Its CFO in the Interim CEO Seat as Board Starts Search
Colette Kress, NVIDIA’s finance chief since 2013, will hold both interim CEO and CFO roles while the board looks for a permanent successor and Harvey Jones becomes first board chair.
NVIDIA’s board accepted Jen-Hsun Huang’s resignation as president, chief executive officer and board member effective Nov. 11, 2026, and appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Colette M. Kress, 59, as interim chief executive while it searches for a permanent CEO. The company said Kress will continue as CFO during the interim period. The board also appointed Harvey C. Jones as chair. The 8-K followed the Nov. 11 board action, and the accompanying press release was dated Nov. 12. [2] [3]
Kress’s official NVIDIA biography documents a long finance career rather than a conventional operating-chief trajectory. She joined NVIDIA in September 2013 and has served as EVP and CFO since then. Before NVIDIA, she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at major technology companies. At Cisco she served three years as senior vice president and CFO of the Business Technology and Operations Finance organization, responsible for financial strategy, planning, reporting and business development for all business segments, engineering and operations. She spent 13 years at Microsoft, including four as CFO of the Server and Tools division and senior roles in corporate planning and finance, and earlier held finance positions at Texas Instruments. She holds a B.Sc. in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. [1]
That record supports the board’s description of Kress as a finance leader with deep technology-company exposure. NVIDIA says that during her tenure she has led the finance organization and played a key role in the company’s growth and evolution. The company’s public disclosures do not list a prior chief executive post. They also do not describe in detail how much operating responsibility she carried outside finance, although her Cisco role covered finance for engineering and operations and business development across segments. The distinction matters because the interim job combines the CEO’s operational and strategic responsibilities with the CFO’s financial ones. [1] [3] [4]
The filing is explicit that Kress is interim, not permanent. The board is initiating a search for a permanent CEO and will consider internal and external candidates, according to the announcement. Kress will serve until a permanent successor is named, but the documents give no timetable, no search criteria and no list of candidates. The board chair said the board has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team and expects operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption. Publicly, the record does not say whether Kress is a candidate for the permanent role. The absence of that detail is not proof that no internal discussion has occurred; it means the company’s public disclosures does not answer the question. [2] [3]
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The simultaneous roles raise practical governance questions. The 8-K is signed by Kress as interim CEO, executive vice president and CFO. NVIDIA’s proxy describes the CEO as having primary responsibility for operational leadership and strategic direction, while the CFO leads the finance organization. The audit committee oversees financial reporting and the independent auditor. If the same person is running the company day to day and leading finance, the board must decide how CFO duties are allocated when CEO demands escalate. The record does not say whether an interim CFO, a deputy or a revised delegation of duties has been created. Nor does it describe any change to disclosure controls or the audit committee’s oversight. These are questions raised by the structure, not findings of failure. [2] [3] [4]
The board also changed its leadership structure by appointing Jones as its first-ever chair. Jones, 73, has served on NVIDIA’s board since 1993 and has been managing partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office, since 2004. The announcement describes more than 30 years as an entrepreneur, high-technology executive and venture investor, including service as CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys. In its May 12, 2026 proxy, NVIDIA described a structure with an independent lead director rather than a chairperson, with Stephen C. Neal as lead director. The Nov. 11 filing did not state whether the lead-director role changes now that Jones is chair. That is a governance detail to watch because the chair and lead director can affect how an interim CEO is overseen. [2] [3] [4]
The financial record Kress inherits as interim CEO is large and recent. For fiscal 2026, NVIDIA reported revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65% year on year; operating income of $130.4 billion, up 60%; and diluted earnings per share of $4.90, up 67%. Gross margin was 71.1%, down 3.9 percentage points. Data Center revenue was $193.7 billion, up 68%. Kress was CFO during that year, and the company credits her with a key role in its growth and evolution. The numbers are company-reported results for a period before the interim appointment, not a scorecard for her brief CEO tenure. [3] [4]
The segment detail shows why the CFO role has been central. Compute & Networking revenue was $193.5 billion, up 67%, while Graphics revenue was $22.5 billion, up 57%. By market platform, Data Center was $193.7 billion, Gaming $16.0 billion, Professional Visualization $3.2 billion and Automotive $2.3 billion, with year-on-year growth of 68%, 41%, 70% and 39%, respectively. The company also cited launches and scale-up of Blackwell Ultra, introduction of Vera Rubin, and a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Groq. These are context for the financial record; the filings do not allocate credit for them to any single executive. [4]
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Two features of that record invite scrutiny. First, gross margin fell even as revenue and operating income rose. Second, the proxy says NVIDIA’s original fiscal 2026 stretch goals for executive pay—$190.0 billion in revenue and $120.0 billion in non-GAAP operating income—were automatically adjusted to $160.0 billion and $96.0 billion because of additional export controls on H20 products in the first half of the fiscal year. That disclosure ties policy risk directly to the company’s pay framework. It does not establish how much of the growth was exposed to export rules, how durable the margin trend is, or how the board weighs those risks in a CEO search. Those remain open questions. [4]
The same proxy ties executive pay to the financial results. The compensation committee kept named executive officers’ cash compensation constant versus fiscal 2025 but increased target equity opportunities for all named executives. The metrics combined fiscal 2026 revenue, fiscal 2026 non-GAAP operating income and three-year relative total shareholder return. Actual revenue of $215.9 billion, non-GAAP operating income of $137.3 billion and 100th-percentile relative TSR exceeded the stretch goals, producing maximum payouts. Kress is one of the named executive officers. The filings do not disclose any separate interim-CEO compensation arrangement or how the board will evaluate pay for the dual role. [4]
Kress also has a disclosed equity stake. The proxy reports 4,443,523 shares beneficially owned as of March 23, 2026, less than 1% of shares outstanding, including shares held through family trusts and grantor retained annuity trusts. That stake aligns her with shareholders but does not by itself answer governance questions about the dual role. [4]
The board’s composition matters to the search. The May proxy described a 10-member board with nine independent directors and Huang as the only NVIDIA officer; Kress was not among the director nominees. The Nov. 11 filing did not say that she was appointed to the board. It also did not name a search committee, a search firm or a deadline. The announcement says only that the board will consider internal and external candidates. Whether Kress will be a candidate, whether she will join the board, and how the board will separate the CEO and CFO functions are unanswered in the public record. [2] [3] [4]
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The next scheduled public checkpoint is close. NVIDIA said it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at approximately 1:20 p.m. Pacific, followed by an earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific. That will be the first scheduled results event after the transition. Investors can watch how Kress handles both CEO and CFO duties on the call, whether management gives an update on the permanent search, and whether the company names any additional finance leadership support. The announcement said operations and the product roadmap are expected to continue without interruption; the call may test that claim. [3]
Several questions remain unanswered by the company’s public disclosures. The public record does not give a timeline for naming a permanent CEO, the criteria for the search, or whether Kress is being considered. It does not say whether she will remain CFO after a permanent CEO arrives, whether an interim CFO will be appointed, or how her compensation will be set for the interim period. It does not state whether the board will change the lead-director role after appointing Jones as chair. These are open items, not conclusions. The lack of public detail does not prove that no internal plan exists. [2] [3] [4]
Specific markers to watch are documented. The Nov. 17 earnings release and call will show how the dual role is presented to investors. Subsequent SEC filings may disclose any change in officer titles, board appointments, search progress or compensation arrangements. A permanent CEO appointment would clarify the interim arrangement’s duration. Any update on the chair and lead-director structure would show how oversight is divided. Until then, the documented facts are the Nov. 11 resignation and appointments, Kress’s finance record, the fiscal 2026 results and the board’s stated search. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Sources
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NVIDIA official Colette Kress biography
NVIDIA CEO transition announcement
NVIDIA2026 definitive proxy statement
Prepared with AI assistance from the cited sources.
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