The woman who has translated NVIDIA’s results for Wall Street for more than a decade is now running the company, at least for the moment.
NVIDIA announced on November 12 that Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. Colette Kress, the company’s long-time finance chief, becomes interim chief executive while also keeping her existing role. The board is starting a search for a permanent successor and has named Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair. The move follows the reporting and board review that we covered earlier in the series.
How Colette Kress Reached NVIDIA
Kress built her career in the finance functions of three large American technology companies before NVIDIA hired her. She began at Texas Instruments in a series of finance roles, then spent 13 years at Microsoft, including four years as chief financial officer of the Server and Tools division. That unit sold Windows Server, SQL Server and developer tools to enterprises. From 2010 she served three years as senior vice-president and chief financial officer of Cisco’s Business Technology and Operations Finance organisation, responsible for financial strategy, planning, reporting and business development across segments, engineering and operations.
She joined NVIDIA in September 2013 as executive vice-president and chief financial officer after a two-year search. At the time it was the smallest company she had worked for. Official biographies note that she holds a B.Sc. in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. She is married with two sons and lives in Saratoga, California. Public profiles list her age in the late 50s.
Her Tenure Through NVIDIA’s Rise
Kress has led the finance organisation through the period in which NVIDIA moved from a company best known for gaming graphics cards to the central supplier of chips for artificial intelligence. Revenue rose from roughly $4 billion in the fiscal year she arrived to $215.9 billion in fiscal 2026, according to company figures. She has appeared on every major earnings call alongside Huang, walking investors through guidance, margins and capital allocation before the chief executive addresses strategy.
- Bloomberg first counted her a billionaire in July 2025, with the bulk of the fortune tied to NVIDIA stock awards accumulated over more than a decade.
- Forbes has listed her net worth around $1 billion and placed her on its rankings of America’s richest self-made women and most powerful women.
- She has also appeared on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list. Analysts have described her as instrumental to NVIDIA’s credibility with Wall Street.
On a May 2026 earnings call she said “AI is no longer a nice-to-have. AI is now a necessity for enhancing productivity across all industries and roles.” She has also discussed sovereign AI revenue, supply-chain planning and the scale of shareholder returns still to come.
The Interim Appointment
In the November 12 release the board said it has full confidence in Kress and the leadership team. Jones, the new chair, stated that she “has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position.” He added that the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.
Kress said “NVIDIA’s strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years. We will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”
She will hold both the interim chief-executive and chief-financial-officer titles until a permanent successor is named. The board will consider internal and external candidates. Some directors had already been reported as viewing her as the natural interim choice in the days before the announcement.
What to Look for Next
Investors will watch the November 17 third-quarter results call for signals on continuity and any update on the earlier independent investigation into whether Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. That probe, and the reporting around Alice Huang and Kimberly Powell, is what prompted the board’s review and the subsequent resignation.
Kress’s dual role means the next earnings cycle will be the first in which the same executive is both setting the financial tone and speaking for the company as interim chief. Any commentary on capital allocation, supply, or the ongoing investigation will be read closely. The board has not given a timeline for naming a permanent chief executive.
Author: Grace sharp
See Also:
Jensen Huang Resigns as NVIDIA CEO
Can NVIDIA’s Board Fire Jensen Huang?
Who Is Alice Huang? The Executive in the NVIDIA Affair Probe
Colette Kress has served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of NVIDIA since September 2013. She joined the company when its market value sat under $10 billion and has helped steer the financial side of its rise into a multi-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure leader. Before NVIDIA, she spent 13 years at Microsoft and three years as CFO of a Cisco division.
Bloomberg first counted her a billionaire in July 2025, with the bulk of the fortune tied to NVIDIA stock awards accumulated over more than a decade. Forbes has listed her net worth around $1 billion and placed her on its rankings of America’s richest self-made women and most powerful women. The figure moves with NVIDIA’s share price because nearly all of her wealth sits in company equity.
Most of her wealth comes from restricted stock units and other equity awards granted during her more than 12 years at NVIDIA. The company’s share price has multiplied many times over since she joined, turning long-held awards into a ten-figure stake. She has also sold modest amounts of stock under pre-arranged plans, but the core of the fortune remains in unsold shares.
She worked in finance roles at Texas Instruments for about eight years, then spent 13 years at Microsoft, including four years as CFO of its Server and Tools division. She later served as CFO of Cisco’s Business Technology and Operations Finance organization before moving to NVIDIA in 2013. Reports have said her two sons, who knew the company from gaming, encouraged the switch.
She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. Those credentials supported her early career in technology finance before the longer stints at Microsoft and Cisco.
Yes. She has ranked on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list multiple times, including in 2024, 2025 and 2026, and on Forbes’ Power Women and America’s Richest Self-Made Women rankings. Analysts have described her as instrumental to NVIDIA’s credibility with Wall Street. Dan Ives of Wedbush has called her leadership key to the company’s success with investors and to Huang’s vision.
On NVIDIA’s May 20, 2026 earnings call she said, “AI is no longer a nice-to-have. AI is now a necessity for enhancing productivity across all industries and roles.” The remark framed rising infrastructure spending as a structural shift rather than a temporary cycle.
