CFO Kress Tipped for a 'Caretaker Year'... Understanding the AI Ecosystem Is Key

[Financial News] With Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stepping down, filling the void he leaves has become an urgent priority.
Following the board's abrupt decision on the 12th (local time), CEO Jensen Huang resigned and Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress took the temporary reins, but she is only the interim CEO. The emergency appointment of director Harvey Jones as board chair was also a stopgap measure to fill the sudden void.
The board plans to form a special committee centered on independent directors to appoint the next permanent CEO. The board is made up of veteran independent directors from Silicon Valley and Wall Street, including Tench Coxe, former managing director at Sutter Hill Ventures, and Stephen Neal, chairman of law firm Cooley.
Kress and other key internal executives are among the leading candidates.
Kress is a finance veteran who joined Nvidia in 2013 after working at Microsoft (MS) and Cisco, and has overseen Wall Street relations, investment and fundraising. Wall Street sees her as a steady choice to manage a crisis, but she has limitations when it comes to designing semiconductor architectures and articulating a technology vision. Kress will also serve as CFO during her tenure as interim CEO.
In the technology division, Ian Buck, vice president in charge of hyperscale and high-performance computing (HPC), is being considered. He joined the company in 2004 and was a key figure in leading development of the parallel computing platform CUDA. He is regarded as having both technical credibility and a network of data center customers. On prediction market platforms Polymarket and Kalshi, Buck currently has the highest odds of being named the next CEO.


Other candidates include Senior Vice President Dwight Diercks, who oversees software engineering, and Senior Vice President Gilad Shainer, who leads networking. The possibility of succession by former CEO Huang's daughter, Madison Huang; his son, Spencer Huang; and his son-in-law, Nico Caprez, has also been raised, but it is unlikely to materialize.
An outside hire is also possible.
For an external candidate, the challenge would be to quickly master Nvidia's complex, integrated hardware-software ecosystem in the AI chip market, where technology is advancing at an extremely rapid pace. The board's biggest task is to find someone who combines technical understanding with management ability, like Lisa Su, who turned AMD from a latecomer into a formidable competitor.
Former Nvidia executive Rene Haas, CEO of Arm, who has broad knowledge of the semiconductor industry; Johny Srouji, Apple's chief hardware officer (CHO); and AMD CEO Lisa Su are among those being considered. President Donald Trump also singled out former Apple CEO Tim Cook.

[email protected] Lee Seok-woo, International Affairs Correspondent Reporter