Colette Kress is the new boss at Nvidia — for now. The company’s chief financial officer was named interim chief executive on Thursday 12 November, hours after Jensen Huang resigned. She keeps her CFO job while she holds the top seat, and she has run Nvidia’s money since September 2013.
Updated: 13 November 2026, 10:30 IST
Quick Read
- Colette Kress, Nvidia’s executive vice-president and chief financial officer since September 2013, is interim CEO after Jensen Huang resigned on 12 November. She keeps her CFO role.
- In her first words as interim chief, Kress said she was committed to building on the 33-year foundation Huang built. She is gathering the executive team at headquarters and will hold a company meeting on 18 November.
- The board is searching for a permanent CEO, inside and outside the company. Before Huang left, Kress and engineer Ian Buck were the leading internal candidates, CNA reported. Searches for her name jumped 1,000% on Google Trends India.
Who is Colette Kress
Kress has been Nvidia’s chief financial officer since September 2013. That is 13 years and two months in the job. She is also an executive vice-president, which puts her in the company’s top leadership group.
Before Nvidia, she worked at Cisco and Microsoft. The board’s statement says she will keep both her old jobs — executive vice-president and chief financial officer — while she serves as interim chief executive.
That is an unusual double role, and it is also the point. The board picked the person who already knows where every dollar goes. Harvey C. Jones, the board’s new first-ever chair, said: “Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position.”
A chief financial officer runs the money side of a company: the accounts, the spending, the deals with banks and investors, and the numbers the company reports every three months. Kress has done that job at Nvidia through the years when AI chips turned the company into one of the most valuable in the world.
Her name is now one of the most searched in India. Google Trends showed “Colette Kress” at 50,000-plus searches, up 1,000%, and active for 14 hours on Friday morning.
Also read: Nvidia loses $500bn as Huang quits
Her first words as boss
Kress’s first statement was short and steady. She said she was committed to building on the 33-year foundation Huang built at Nvidia. She promised staff more information in the coming days about “our future together”, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Within hours, she began gathering the executive team at Nvidia’s headquarters. Next week she will face the whole company: a meeting is set for 18 November, the day after Nvidia reports its third-quarter results.
The board’s message was just as plain. Jones said the board has “full confidence in Colette and the leadership team” and expects the company’s work, customer promises and product plans to carry on “without interruption”.
The 13 years before the top job
Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 as chief financial officer. Thirteen years later, she is running the company. She arrived long before the AI boom, and she stayed through every step of it: the rise of data-centre chips, the crypto mining surge, and then the AI rush that made Nvidia’s hardware the most wanted in tech.
That history is why the board turned to her first. She knows the customers, because she has priced the deals with them. She knows the costs, because she has signed off on the spending. And she knows the investors, because she has reported the numbers to them every quarter for 13 years.
None of that makes her the permanent chief executive. It makes her the safe pair of hands while the board decides who that should be.
Who could take the job for good
The board has started a search for a permanent chief executive. It will consider people from inside Nvidia and outside it. No names have been confirmed as finalists, and no deadline has been given.
Before Huang left, two names led the internal list: Kress herself, and engineer Ian Buck, CNA reported. Buck is a senior engineer at Nvidia. He is the other insider the board had in mind when it weighed its options.
Outside candidates are also in play, since the board said plainly it will look beyond the company. That is normal for a job this big. The next chief executive of Nvidia will run a company worth trillions, at the centre of the AI boom, in the middle of a US-China fight over chips. The board will not rush it.
Also read: Nvidia falls 8% as board weighs Huang exit
What changes, and what does not
For now, the board says nothing changes in how Nvidia works. Jones said the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap will continue “without interruption”. The third-quarter results still come out on 17 November, as planned, with an earnings call the same day.
That call will be Kress’s first big public moment as interim chief. Investors will listen for two things: whether she sounds like a caretaker or a candidate, and whether the numbers are strong enough to steady a share price that has lost over $500 billion in value.
The bigger questions will wait. Whoever takes the job for good must handle the US Congress hearings, the chip-export rules, and rivals who are catching up on AI hardware. Kress’s job is to keep the company steady until that person is picked.
What it means for readers in India
Nvidia sells no phone or laptop in India, so this is not about a price you pay. It matters because its chips sit at the centre of the AI boom. Indian IT firms and start-ups buy or rent them, and Indian investors hold the stock through funds that track US markets.
India has its own stake in Nvidia’s plans. Reliance, Yotta and L&T have chip and AI deals tied to Nvidia hardware, as we reported on 10 November. No new India development has been reported since then. What changes is who runs the company that supplies the chips — and for now, that person is the woman who has run its money for 13 years.
Also read: Claude Fable 5.2 out: 20% cheaper, 30% faster
FAQ
Is Colette Kress the permanent CEO of Nvidia?
No. She is interim CEO only. The board has started a search for a permanent chief executive and will consider candidates from inside and outside the company. Kress keeps her job as chief financial officer while she holds the top seat.
How long has she been at Nvidia?
Since September 2013, when she joined as chief financial officer. That is 13 years and two months in the job. Before Nvidia, she worked at Cisco and Microsoft.
Who else could get the job?
Before Huang left, the leading internal candidates were Kress and engineer Ian Buck, CNA reported. The board will also consider outside candidates. No finalists have been named, and no deadline has been given.
Desk-original added context
Our own career timeline, from the reports: before 2013 — senior finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft; September 2013 — joins Nvidia as executive vice-president and chief financial officer; 12 November 2026 — named interim chief executive, keeps the CFO role; 17 November 2026 — Nvidia reports third-quarter results, her first earnings call in charge; 18 November 2026 — company-wide meeting with staff. Our own count: 13 years and two months as CFO when she took the interim job — the longest-serving member of Nvidia’s top team to step into the role. And our own successor shortlist, clearly labelled as reported, not confirmed: Ian Buck, the engineer CNA named as the other leading internal candidate before the exit, and unnamed external candidates, since the board said it will look outside the company too. One gap worth stating: her age and education have been reported in some places, but we could not verify them in this round, so this post states neither.
Sources
- Channel News Asia — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns (13 Nov 2026, 200 verified; primary source — Kress appointment, Buck as internal candidate)
- The Indian Express — Nvidia chief Jensen Huang resigns, CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO (13 Nov 2026, 200 verified; full board statement, Jones quote)
- Moneycontrol — Jensen Huang steps down as Nvidia CEO; CFO Colette Kress takes over as interim chief (12 Nov 2026, 200 verified)
Sasanka Sekhar Pradhan is the founder of India Presents, an India-focused news site. He covers daily box-office trackers, India news, economy explainers, sports previews and festival guides — in simple English, so readers across India can follow fast-moving stories without jargon. His focus is what a story means for the reader: the number that matters, the source behind it, and what happens next. India Presents publishes daily, with day-trackers updated as new figures come in.
