That Colette Kress, who was reportedly described as “a deer in the headlights” by none other than Jensen Huang in August, has become the interim CEO of Nvidia earlier this week is not just another instance of a woman breaking the glass ceiling and joining the league of women tech CEOs in the US. The scale of the responsibility she has taken on at the Santa Clara-headquartered AI hardware giant, and its commanding position in the AI universe, makes her appointment particularly significant.
The 59-year-old Kress shot to prominence on November 12 after being appointed interim CEO of Nvidia Corporation, until recently the world’s most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of over $5.77 trillion. Her appointment followed Huang’s reported departure from the company.
Kress, a mother of two, has been with Nvidia since September 2013, serving as executive vice-president and chief financial officer. She will continue to hold both positions even as interim CEO.
At the time she joined Nvidia, it was the smallest company she had worked for. Her previous stints included Texas Instruments, Microsoft, where she served as CFO of its server and tools division, and Cisco, where she headed business technology and operations finance.
Kress holds a bachelor’s degree in science in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.
She has been instrumental in Nvidia’s rapid rise to prominence during the AI boom. As the company expanded rapidly, she led efforts to digitise manual processes and helped direct its investments in several other companies.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, at a meeting in August 2026, Huang convened Kress and his senior finance team to seek their advice on Nvidia’s discussions to provide billions in guarantees to companies that could not afford its chips.
During the meeting, Huang reportedly interrupted Kress, accusing her of taking a “deer in the headlights” approach. He also reportedly told her that her role was that of a “reporting CFO.”
One reported reason for the confrontation was Kress’s opposition to $250 billion worth of credit-guarantee deals with customers, including projects involving companies led by Huang’s son-in-law. She also reportedly pushed to halve Nvidia’s financial backing for an OpenAI data-centre project.
With her appointment, Kress joins the list of women leading major US technology firms. They include Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the first woman to lead a Fortune 500 semiconductor company; Jayshree V Ullal, president and CEO of Arista Networks since 2008, among many others.
Before joining Nvidia, Kress spent nearly 25 years building her career at some of the biggest names in the technology sector. She began with an eight-year stint in finance roles at Texas Instruments before moving to Microsoft, where she worked from 1997 to 2010 and eventually became CFO of its server and tools division.
In 2010, she joined Cisco as senior vice-president and CFO of business technology and operations finance organisation, where she was responsible for financial strategy and business development. She moved to Nvidia in 2013, despite it being smallest company she had worked for.
Kress is also among the wealthiest executives in the world. Forbes ranked her 32nd on its 2026 list of America’s richest self-made women. At the stock’s October peak, her Nvidia holdings pushed her personal net worth beyond $1 billion.
In a statement following her appointment, Kress said Nvidia’s “strength has always come from its people” and that she would build on the “extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years”.
While Kress remains interim CEO, the company is expected to search for a full-time successor.
