Jensen Huang resigns as NVIDIA CEO, CFO Colette Kress steps in

The announcement came on Thursday, November 12, 2026. It covers three changes at the top of the company.

• Huang leaves: he resigned as President, CEO and a member of the board, effective immediately.
• Kress steps in: Colette Kress, the company's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, is Interim CEO.
• A new Chair: Harvey C. Jones becomes the board's first-ever Chair of the Board.

"Interim" means temporary. Kress serves until the board names a permanent successor, and she keeps her finance job while she does it. So one person is now running the company and its money at the same time.

A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, a Form 8-K, says the board accepted Huang's resignation on Wednesday, November 11. An 8-K is the short report public companies must file when something big happens, such as a CEO leaving.

Kress joined NVIDIA in September 2013 as CFO, the executive who runs the company's finances. According to NVIDIA, she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies before that, including Cisco and Microsoft. The SEC filing lists her age as 59.

NVIDIA says she "has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position." That line comes from Harvey Jones, the new Chair.

The board is also searching for a permanent CEO. It says it will consider internal and external candidates, so the job is open to people outside the company too.

Jones is a veteran of the chip world. He has been an entrepreneur, technology executive and venture investor for more than 30 years, and he once served as CEO and Executive Chairman of Synopsys, a company that makes software for designing chips.

The filing says he has been on NVIDIA's board since 1993, which is the year the company was founded. Since 2004 he has been Managing Partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office. His age is listed as 73.

His title is new. NVIDIA calls him its first-ever Chair of the Board. The chair leads the board, the group of directors who oversee the CEO on behalf of shareholders.

In real life Think of a ship that keeps sailing while the captain's chair is held by the first officer. The engines, the crew and the route stay the same. The question is who gets the chair for good.

The board wants customers and investors to hear one message: nothing stops. Jones said in the announcement that Kress "is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing NVIDIA's strategy and advancing its technology roadmap."

He added that "the Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team," and that the board expects "the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption."

Kress also gave a statement. She said NVIDIA's strength "has always come from its people," and that the company's focus "remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders."

NVIDIA's announcement thanks Huang for his "immeasurable contributions." It calls NVIDIA "one of the most consequential technology companies in the world." It does not give a reason for the resignation.

The resignation did not come out of nowhere. Over the weekend of November 8, Huang admitted to being unfaithful to his wife. Reports said the relationship was with a woman whom US authorities had identified as a Chinese intelligence asset.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, rejected the allegations as "groundless."

On Sunday, November 8, NVIDIA's board announced an inquiry into reports that Huang may have been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. It said: "While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board's inquiry will examine all available information."

Huang also denied that he had compromised NVIDIA's security. NVIDIA has not said whether the inquiry is finished, and it has not tied the inquiry to the resignation. This story reports only what the company and the filing confirm.

NVIDIA is not a normal company to lose a leader from. Its shares were valued at about $4.3 trillion last week, which made it the world's second most valuable company. Its chips, called GPUs, power most of the large data centers that train and run AI models. Some estimates put its share of that market near 90%.

Stock investors reacted when the inquiry became public. NVIDIA shares fell more than 4% in early trading on Monday, November 9, even though the wider market rose that day. Huang owns about 3.6% of NVIDIA, which made him one of its largest shareholders. He did not hold special voting shares, so he did not control the company by votes.

Huang was the public face of NVIDIA. He ran the company with a wide span of control: about 60 people reported to him directly, and the company had no chief operating officer, the executive who usually runs day-to-day operations.

Governance experts have said the board had no clearly outlined succession plan. A succession plan is a ready answer to the question of who takes over. Some of those experts described the company as being built around one person.

The announcement did not name a permanent successor. NVIDIA also keeps the CFO and the interim CEO roles in one person for now, so the board will need to decide how long that arrangement can last.

The date to watch is Tuesday, November 17. NVIDIA says it will report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 results at about 1:20 p.m. PT, with an earnings call at 2 p.m. PT, as previously scheduled. Kress will be the person on the call as both CFO and interim CEO.

After that, the story is the search. The board has said it will look inside and outside the company. It has not given a timeline.

For a sense of what NVIDIA is working on right now, see our story on NVIDIA's GR00T 2 and Isaac Lab 3 robotics tools. The company says that roadmap continues.

• Gamers and PC builders: nothing in the announcement changes products, prices or release plans.
• Companies buying AI chips: NVIDIA says customer commitments continue without interruption.
• Investors: the November 17 earnings report is the next hard data point, and the first with Kress in charge.
• Everyone else: the company behind much of today's AI hardware will name a new permanent leader in the coming months.