After Jensen Huang's exit, Nvidia board hunts for a new CEO — Buck, Haas and Lisa Su in the mix

The hunt is on for a new Nvidia CEO. It comes after a whirlwind week, which saw the company head and co-founder, Jensen Huang, resign amid multiple allegations of extramarital affairs, including one that involved an alleged Chinese spy and two with company employees.

Nvidia immediately named Colette Kress, the company's chief financial officer, as the interim CEO. It is possible she could stay on permanently, but the company could also name another candidate for the full-time role. Names that have been floated include Ian Buck, who manages Nvidia's AI hardware and software products, and Rene Haas, a former Nvidia employee and the current CEO of Arm Holdings, a UK-based chipmaker.

The board said it was starting a search for Huang's permanent replacement and is considering internal and external candidates. Kress will serve as both CEO and interim CFO until the board names a permanent successor.

Kress, 59, joined Nvidia in 2013 as CFO after working in finance roles at Texas Instruments, Microsoft and Cisco. She is a regular contributor to the company's quarterly earnings calls, and has overseen Nvidia go from a niche firm geared toward video game chips to a trillion-dollar AI juggernaut.

"Colette has helped lead Nvidia through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position," Harvey C Jones, the newly named chair of Nvidia's board of directors, said in a statement on Thursday. "The board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team." Kress wrote that Nvidia's "strength has always come from its people" and that she was "committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years".

Along with Kress, Buck is seen as a possible successor. He has worked at Nvidia since 2004 and is in charge of deploying generative AI in partnership with the world's top AI companies, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI and more.

Haas, the CEO of Arm Holdings, is also well-known at Nvidia, having worked there for seven years as a vice president and general manager before joining Arm in 2013. Lisa Su, the CEO of chipmaker AMD, is also being named as a possible replacement for Huang. Her company is Nvidia's most direct and fierce competitor; she is also a distant cousin to Huang.

Huang, who co-founded the company in 1993, is known as an ambitious and visionary CEO who had a hand in most aspects of the business. He led in an unusual management style, having about 60 direct reports, giving him more control over the company's daily functions. His son and daughter also work at Nvidia, with his daughter seen as his possible proxy, but neither appears to have sufficient experience to take the helm.

Whoever takes over from Huang will have tremendous sway in the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence. The entire AI ecosphere relies on Nvidia, which engineers advanced chips used to train AI models and power companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Nvidia is also a central driver of the US economy and one of the world's most valuable companies, with a market cap of around $4tn.

Nvidia's CEO turmoil comes as the company is set to report its third-quarter earnings next Tuesday.