Jensen Huang, who co-founded NVIDIA and has led it for 33 years, has resigned as president, chief executive and board member with immediate effect, the company announced on 12 November. The company gave no reason.
Colette Kress, NVIDIA’s chief financial officer since 2013, becomes interim chief executive while keeping her finance role. Harvey Jones, a former chief executive of chip design software firm Synopsys, becomes the company’s first board chair. The board says it will consider internal and external candidates for a permanent chief executive.
The announcement came four days after the board said it had opened an independent investigation, overseen by independent directors with outside counsel, following reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. At the time, the board said it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised, and that Huang supported the review.
Why it matters: NVIDIA’s chips are used to train and run much of today’s AI, so a sudden change at the top matters well beyond its shareholders. The board says it expects the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption. NVIDIA reports quarterly results on 17 November.
Source: NVIDIA