Nvidia’s interim CEO spent 13 years behind the scenes at Microsoft
Colette Kress, named Nvidia's interim CEO on Thursday after Jensen Huang resigned, spent 13 years at Microsoft, including four as chief financial officer of its Server and Tools business. She faces her first test in the job Tuesday, when Nvidia reports quarterly results. Read More
Colette Kress, named Nvidia’s interim CEO on Thursday after Jensen Huang’s abrupt resignation, spent 13 years at Microsoft earlier in her career, including four as chief financial officer of the Redmond company’s Server and Tools business.
But to say she was under the radar would be an understatement: a search of Seattle-area news archives turns up a single mention of her name from her Microsoft years, in a 2007 press release listing her as a presenter at a Hotel 1000 seminar on Microsoft’s budgeting software.
Of course, that’s to be expected. Divisional finance execs aren’t typically public faces at Microsoft or anywhere else. But now she finds herself in the global spotlight, running the chipmaker at the center of the AI boom — at least for the time being.
Nvidia announced Thursday that Huang resigned as president, CEO and a member of the board, effective immediately, following reports of an extramarital affair with a woman U.S. intelligence officials reportedly concluded was a Chinese spy, and a second affair with a direct report.
Kress will remain CFO while the board searches for a permanent CEO, considering internal and external candidates. Director Harvey Jones, the former Synopsys CEO, becomes Nvidia’s first board chair. Nvidia shares fell more than 13% in early trading.
Wall Street analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co. wrote in a note Thursday morning that Kress has built “enormous credibility” inside and outside Nvidia. “We always believed she would eventually be CEO of a major public tech company, but she would have to leave Nvidia after many years there,” he wrote.
Kress joined Microsoft in 1997 after finance roles at Texas Instruments, and held senior positions in corporate planning and finance before becoming chief financial officer of the Server and Tools business, which sold Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as a Microsoft corporate vice president from April 2006 to November 2010.
Server and Tools was also a training ground for Microsoft’s current leadership. Satya Nadella took over the business in 2011, after Kress left, and used it as a springboard to the CEO job three years later. Amy Hood, now Microsoft’s CFO, served as its chief of staff earlier in her career.
From Microsoft, Kress went to Cisco as senior vice president and CFO of its Business Technology and Operations Finance organization. Nvidia hired her as CFO in September 2013, ending a search of more than two years.
Now as Nvidia’s interim CEO, her first major test comes quickly. Nvidia reports fiscal third-quarter results Tuesday, Nov. 17, with an earnings call scheduled for 2 p.m. Pacific.
