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Nvidia Interim CEO Colette Kress Grew Revenue 52x as CFO, From $4.13B to $215.9B

The finance chief who has run Nvidia money since 2013 now runs the whole company. Colette Kress presided over revenue growth from $4.13 billion to $215.9 billion, fronts every earnings call, and takes her first test on November 17.

Nvidia Interim CEO Colette Kress Grew Revenue 52x as CFO, From $4.13B to $215.9B
Financial Gurkha News Desk·
LeadershipNvidiaNVDAColette KressCEO Transition

NEW YORK, Nov 12 — The woman Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) turned to on Thursday is not a newcomer, an outsider or a caretaker plucked from the board. Colette Kress, 59, has been the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013 — the finance chief who signed off on every quarter of the AI boom — and is now interim chief executive after Jensen Huang resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. She keeps the CFO job as well, and is the first person other than Huang to lead the company he co-founded in 1993.

The handover#

The board also named Harvey C. Jones, the former Synopsys chief executive, as its first-ever chair. Jones said Kress "has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position," adding: "The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect 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." In an internal email to staff seen by The Wall Street Journal, she wrote: "I recognize that this has been an extraordinarily difficult period," and promised more information about "our future together" in the coming days. The board is running a search for a permanent CEO and will consider internal and external candidates. Her first public test comes fast: Nvidia confirmed third-quarter results stay on Tuesday, November 17, with Kress now leading the earnings call she has fronted as CFO for years.

Thirteen years of numbers#

Kress arrived at a graphics-chip company with $4.13 billion of annual revenue; the company booked $215.9 billion in fiscal 2026, a 52-fold increase on her watch (Reuters). The most recent reported quarter, the second quarter of fiscal 2027, printed $96.2 billion of revenue, up 106% from a year earlier. In that quarter alone, Nvidia returned approximately $26.0 billion to shareholders in buybacks and dividends, held $56.6 billion in cash and marketable debt securities, and still had approximately $99.0 billion authorized for repurchases. The company she now runs is worth about $4 trillion, even after a slide of more than 10% in premarket trading on Thursday.

Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Cisco#

The résumé runs nearly four decades, almost all of it in technology finance. Kress spent about eight years in finance roles at Texas Instruments, then 13 years at Microsoft, where she became chief financial officer of the Server and Tools division in 2006. She moved to Cisco in 2010 as senior vice president and chief financial officer of its Business Technology and Operations Finance organization, and left for Nvidia in 2013, after nearly 25 years in finance roles at major technology companies. She holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. She told Fortune in 2024 that Nvidia was the smallest company she had worked for when she joined.

The voice investors already know#

For 13 years, Kress has been the second voice on every Nvidia earnings call, presenting the results and taking analyst questions alongside Huang. "Colette Kress is well respected by investors and should be able to guide NVIDIA through this challenging period," said Gil Luria, managing director at DA Davidson, in comments carried by Reuters. "The task is daunting, as NVIDIA has been founder-led since inception." Forbes ranks her No. 32 on its 2026 list of America's richest self-made women; Reuters reports her Nvidia shares were worth roughly $750 million at Wednesday's close. Whether she is a candidate for the permanent job is reporting, not fact: Reuters noted analysts saw Kress and engineering chief Ian Buck as the leading internal names, and Semafor reported some directors favored her for the interim role. The company has said only that internal and external candidates will be considered.

Sources#

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