Who is Colette Kress, the Nvidia finance chief now running the chipmaker?

Colette Kress, 59, has become the first new chief executive of Nvidia in 33 years, taking the job on an interim basis after co-founder Jensen Huang stepped down on Thursday. Kress joined Nvidia in 2013 and has led its finance organisation for 13 years. She will serve as both chief executive and chief financial officer until a permanent successor is chosen, with the board searching for candidates from inside and outside the company.

On paper, the appointment is temporary. In practice, it places one of the most consequential jobs in global technology in the hands of a finance chief who, until this week, was best known to the outside world through earnings calls and financial statements. Understanding who Kress is — and how she worked alongside Huang for more than a decade — helps explain why the board turned to her at a moment of crisis, and what kind of leadership Nvidia is likely to have while the search unfolds.

A two-decade rise at Nvidia

Kress's longevity is central to her authority, even though her defining role at Nvidia has lasted 13 years. That is an unusually long run as chief financial officer in a fast-moving technology company. It spans the period in which Nvidia transformed itself from a respected maker of graphics processors into the central supplier of the chips that train and run artificial intelligence systems.

A chief financial officer in such a period does far more than count revenue. Kress performed that role through Nvidia's expansion, presenting its results quarter after quarter and becoming, for many investors, the calm counterpoint to Huang's sweeping technological vision.

That experience gives her a particular credibility in a crisis. She knows where the money is committed, which customers and suppliers matter most, and how the company has explained its strategy to the markets. A board looking for a safe pair of hands needs someone who can speak to Wall Street, to major customers and to employees on the first day, without learning on the job. After 13 years in the finance role, Kress could do that immediately.

The steady hand

Inside Nvidia, Kress was known as the executive willing to check Huang's enormous, often risky ambitions, according to two people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. As Huang drove the chipmaker deeper into multibillion-dollar artificial-intelligence investments, she pushed back, they said.

That reputation — as the person willing to ask the hard second question — may be her most important qualification now. Founder-led companies often depend on a productive tension at the top: a visionary who pushes for scale and speed, and a trusted colleague who tests whether the finances, the risks and the timing support the vision. If Kress played that role for Huang, she was not opposing Nvidia's ambition. She was, in the account given to Reuters, helping to discipline it.

In a statement after her appointment, Kress said: NVIDIA's strength has always come from its people, and added: I will move the company forward, building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen Huang has laid over the past 33 years.

The wording was notable for what it chose to emphasize. It praised the company's people rather than dwelling on the circumstances of the departure, and it paid tribute to Huang's foundation even as she took over from him. That balance — acknowledging the founder's legacy while asserting that the company will move forward — is the tone an interim leader must strike with employees who may be unsettled and uncertain about what comes next.

What she inherits

The market test was immediate. Nvidia shares slumped 14 percent to their lowest in nearly 16 months on Thursday after Huang stepped down, then pared losses to close down 4.3 percent at 166.19 dollars. Whether Kress will keep the chief executive role permanently is yet to be decided. Her next test comes on Tuesday, November 17, when she leads Nvidia's third-quarter results call.

That earnings call will be her first great public examination in the new role. Investors will examine the figures, but they will also judge her command of the wider story: demand for AI chips, the company's regulatory exposure, and the progress of the board's search. A finance chief leading an earnings call is routine. An interim chief executive who is also still the finance chief, leading her first call days after a founder's abrupt exit, is not.

For now, that task belongs to Kress. Whether she remains a caretaker for a short transition or emerges as a candidate to keep the job will depend on the board's search and on her performance in these first weeks. What is already clear is that Nvidia's first new leader in 33 years is not an outsider learning the company from scratch. She is the executive who, for 13 years, kept its finances — and, by reputation, kept its founder's biggest bets honest.