She has been the financial director of Nvidia since 2013: who is Colette Kress, the American who will take over as interim head of the chip giant after the departure of Jensen Huang?

Colette Kress, the financial director of Nvidia, will take over as interim head of the semiconductor giant following the departure of Jensen Huang, until then general manager. This appointment comes as Nvidia is looking for a permanent successor to the 63-year-old leader, who resigned following information according to which he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a Chinese businesswoman suspected of spying for Beijing. Colette Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013 as executive vice president and chief financial officer, a position she has held since then.

In this capacity, she participated in the company's quarterly earnings conference calls alongside Jensen Huang. Nvidia's turnover, which amounted to 4.13 billion dollars during the fiscal year of her arrival, reached 215.9 billion for 2026. • Microsoft and Cisco before Nvidia Before joining Nvidia, Colette Kress held various financial positions at Texas Instruments for eight years, then worked at Microsoft from 1997 to 2010.

At the latter, she became financial director of the "Server and Tools" division in 2006, where she was notably responsible for financial strategy and planning. She then joined Cisco in 2010 as senior vice president and chief financial officer of the Business Technology and Operations Finance organization, where she oversaw financial strategy and business development. • Graduate in finance Colette Kress holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Arizona and a master's degree in business administration from Southern Methodist University, according to Nvidia's annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the regulatory and supervisory authority for financial markets in the United States.

Nvidia's new interim CEO told Fortune magazine in 2024 that the now-semiconductor giant was the smallest company she worked for when she started there. • Executives employed without an individual contract Nvidia executives are employed without an individual employment contract, nor severance pay or specific protection in the event of a change of control, according to the circular addressed to shareholders by the group. Nvidia has indicated in previously filed documents that many of its competitors offer such deals.

According to these documents, Colette Kress's remuneration includes free shares which are blocked during a period of effective acquisition of these securities, in particular an allocation received in March 2026 and to be acquired gradually over four years. • $750 million in shares Forbes ranked Colette Kress 32nd in its 2026 list of the richest American women who have built their fortune themselves. Its shares in the chipmaker were valued at about $750 million as of Wednesday's close, down from a peak of more than $1 billion reached last month.

Machine-translated from French