Chief financial officer Colette Kress is interim chief executive of Nvidia after Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive and director, effective immediately. The board moved within hours to name Kress, a long serving finance chief who knows the company customers, contracts and cash flows, as the steady hand while it searches for a permanent successor.
Why it matters
The board has hired an outside search firm, according to Bloomberg, and no candidates have been named. The choice will be the most important the board has made in three decades, because Huang founded the company, ran it for 33 years and owned about 3.6 percent of it as its largest shareholder. An outsider would signal a break with the Huang era, while an insider would suggest continuity with a different face at the top.
Kress takes over at a difficult moment. Nvidia fell as much as 14 percent at the open on Thursday before closing down 4.34 percent at 166.19 dollars, and the shares are on track to wipe more than half a trillion dollars of market value since the board opened its investigation. The company still plans to report earnings on November 17, with revenue guidance of 108 billion dollars.
What happens next
The governance questions are now as important as the business. The board has hired Wachtell, a firm known for boardroom battles, to advise on the probe, and it has appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first chair. The board has said it has no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, and Beijing has denied that there was any Chinese plot to spy on Huang.
For now, Kress has the job and the board has the search. Her first test comes on Tuesday, when she presents the quarterly results without Huang beside her. How the market judges that presentation will shape how long the interim lasts, and how much freedom the board has to choose.
The earnings report on Tuesday will be the first real test of the interim leadership. Kress knows the numbers better than anyone at the company, and the market will judge her on the guidance as much as on the results. If the numbers hold, the board gains time. If they slip, the search for a permanent chief executive becomes the only story that matters.
