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NVIDIA: Jensen Huang resigns after 33 years, Colette Kress named interim CEO

NVIDIA's board of directors announced on 12 November that Jensen Huang has resigned, effective immediately, as president, chief executive officer and board member. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is leading the company on an interim basis, while Harvey C. Jones becomes the first chair of the board in the company's history.

NewsStatcade editorial team3 min read
Statcade graphic: NVIDIA, Jensen Huang leaves after 33 years; Colette Kress interim chief executive
Image: Statcade graphic based on NVIDIA data

Jensen Huang's 33 years at the helm of NVIDIA, the leading supplier of GPUs for gaming PCs, have come to an end. In a statement published on Thursday 12 November, the board of directors announced that the co-founder "has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board, effective immediately" (our translation). The statement gives no reasons for his departure, contains no comment from Huang and reports no conclusions from the independent investigation the board launched on 8 November.

The role of interim CEO goes to Colette Kress, executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013, who will also remain CFO until a permanent successor is appointed. The board has started a search and will consider internal and external candidates. NVIDIA has also appointed a chair of the board for the first time: Harvey C. Jones, former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys. According to Jones, the board has "full confidence" in Kress and the leadership team and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue "without interruption". Kress said she intends to build on the "extraordinary foundation" Huang created.

A week of revelations

The announcement follows a week of revelations. The board's investigation concerned the possibility that Huang had been the target of an intelligence operation through his relationship with Alice Huang (no relation), a former executive at the Singapore company Megaspeed whom US officials believe to be working for Chinese intelligence; Beijing has rejected the accusations. On 11 November the New York Times reported a second relationship, with Kimberly Powell, vice president for healthcare, who reported directly to him. According to CNN and The Verge, the board met on Wednesday evening to consider removing him; according to CNN, the shares were down more than 10% in trading before Wall Street opened.

Next up: on Tuesday 17 November NVIDIA will publish its results for the third quarter of fiscal 2027 as planned, at around 1:20 p.m. Pacific time (10:20 p.m. in Italy). For PC gamers the question is whether the change at the top will affect GeForce plans, at a time already marked by rising memory costs; for now the board says it is confident that the product roadmap will continue without interruption.

Sources: official NVIDIA statement "NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition" (12 November 2026); VideoCardz, Wired, The Verge and CNN (12 November 2026), which also cite the New York Times. Text by Statcade.