Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia's CEO; CFO Colette Kress named interim chief
Nvidia's board accepted the co-founder's resignation, effective immediately, made a longtime director its first chair, and began a search for a permanent CEO days before quarterly earnings.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia's co-founder and longtime chief executive, has resigned as the company's president, chief executive, and a member of its board, effective immediately. Nvidia announced the change on Thursday, November 12.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the board accepted the resignation on Wednesday, November 11. Neither the press release nor the filing gives a reason for his departure.
Who is running Nvidia now
Colette Kress, Nvidia's executive vice president and chief financial officer, has agreed to serve as interim CEO. She will keep her CFO role while the board searches for a permanent successor, and the company says it will consider internal and external candidates.
Kress, 59, has been CFO since September 2013. Nvidia says that before joining the company she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft. She signed the SEC filing with all three titles: interim chief executive officer, executive vice president, and chief financial officer.
The board also created a new position. Harvey C. Jones, 73, becomes Nvidia's first-ever chair of the board. The filing says Jones has been a director since 1993 and has been managing partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private family office, since 2004. He is a former CEO and executive chairman of the chip-design software company Synopsys.
What the company is saying
In the press release, Jones said the board has "full confidence in Colette and the leadership team" and that it expects "the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption."
Kress said she is "committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years." The board thanked Huang for what it called "immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry."
CNBC published emails that it said Jones and Kress sent to employees after the announcement. In hers, Kress acknowledged what she called "an extraordinarily difficult period" and said Nvidia would hold a company meeting on November 18 at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
What happens next
Nvidia says it will still report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific, with its earnings call at 2 p.m. Pacific, as previously scheduled. That call will be the first under interim leadership, and the first public chance for analysts to ask the company directly about the transition and the CEO search.
Why it matters
Nvidia, which describes itself as the world leader in AI and accelerated computing, makes the chips that much of the AI industry relies on to train and run models, and Huang has long been the company's public face. The board's own statement credits him with a foundation built over 33 years. A sudden change at the top of that company is significant on its own.
What to watch is practical: whether customer commitments and product schedules hold, as the board says they will; how long the search takes and whether the board picks an insider or an outsider; and what Kress says on Tuesday's earnings call. The Parameter will report on the company's official statements and filings as they come, and will not repeat claims about the reasons for Huang's resignation that the company has not confirmed.
Sources
- NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition — NVIDIA Newsroom, Nov. 12, 2026
- NVIDIA Corporation Form 8-K (report dated Nov. 11, 2026) — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- Here's what Nvidia interim CEO Colette Kress and board chair Harvey Jones wrote to Nvidia employees — CNBC, Nov. 12, 2026
The Parameter reports only what its sources support. Corrections: hello@theparameter.ai.