Colette Kress, Nvidia's CFO since September 2013, has been appointed interim CEO following Jensen Huang's resignation
Before joining Nvidia, she spent eight years at Texas Instruments, 13 years at Microsoft and three years at Cisco, building nearly 25 years of technology-finance experience
During her tenure at Nvidia, annual revenue increased from $4.13 billion in fiscal 2013 to $215.9 billion in fiscal 2026, while second-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue reached $96.2 billion
The Woman Behind Nvidia's AI Boom: Who Is Colette Kress, The CFO Taking Over From Huang?
The longtime CFO takes interim charge after Jensen Huang’s resignation, bringing nearly 25 years of technology-finance experience to an AI chipmaker whose quarterly revenue has crossed $96 billion.
Summary
Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer since 2013, has taken charge as interim chief executive after the resignation of co-founder Jensen Huang on Thursday. She will hold both positions until the company appoints a permanent successor, with the board saying it will consider candidates from inside and outside the company.
Kress steps into the role after more than a decade overseeing Nvidia’s finances through its transformation from a graphics-chip maker into a major supplier of artificial intelligence computing infrastructure. The board has credited her with helping steer the company’s growth, while newly appointed chairman Harvey C. Jones said she had a deep understanding of its business, customers and operations.
Her career in technology finance began well before Nvidia. Kress spent eight years at Texas Instruments before joining Microsoft in 1997, where she held several finance and corporate-planning roles over 13 years. From 2006, she served as chief financial officer of Microsoft’s Server and Tools division.
In 2010, she moved to Cisco as senior vice-president and CFO of its Business Technology and Operations Finance organisation. She joined Nvidia in September 2013 as executive vice-president and CFO, reporting directly to Huang. She holds a finance degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
Beyond The Balance Sheet
Kress’s responsibilities have extended into the financial architecture supporting Nvidia’s AI expansion. In a company blog co-written with Raj Mirpuri in July, she outlined a model involving AI cloud companies and infrastructure partners, using revenue-sharing and credit support to finance large-scale computing facilities. The arrangement was designed to broaden access to Nvidia-powered infrastructure while giving the company a share of revenue generated through supported capacity.
Her financial stewardship has coincided with extraordinary growth. Nvidia reported $96.2 billion in revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2027, up 106% from a year earlier, while data-centre revenue reached $89 billion. During the August earnings call, Kress projected revenue growth of approximately 70% in fiscal 2028, describing the outlook as supply-constrained.
Advertisement
Her first major scheduled test in the new role comes on November 17, when Nvidia is due to report its third-quarter results. The board has not announced a timetable for choosing a permanent CEO. For now, Kress has pledged to build on the foundation created during Huang’s 33-year leadership and maintain the company’s focus on AI and accelerated computing.
Published At: