Who would be next CEO at Nvidia? Top engineer and CFO favoured as candidates

SAN FRANCISCO: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has never anointed a successor, but many analysts and investors see two people as particularly likely candidates, at least for the short term: Nvidia's uber-engineer Ian Buck and chief financial officer Colette Kress.

Nvidia's board is meeting on Wednesday to decide whether to oust Huang, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the world's dominant supplier of AI processors grapples with reports of two extramarital affairs involving its longtime leader. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the board meeting.

Huang isn't the usual CEO. He is a charismatic, leather-jacket-wearing apostle of Nvidia chips who built the company on processors for video games, transformed it into an artificial intelligence machine, and, in turn, created the most valuable company in the world.

"Jensen Huang is a rockstar in the industry. He’s outspoken and synonymous with the Nvidia brand, and a leader like that is very hard to replace," said Anna Wu, founder of Floodlines Research in Sydney. 

That fear has contributed to a US$600 billion selloff of Nvidia's shares this week, now making it the world's second-most valuable company. 

On Wednesday, speculation on who might be tapped if Huang is ousted ranged from a leader of a rival chip giant, such as Arm chief Rene Haas, and 32-year Nvidia veteran Jeff Fisher, to one of Huang's two children, both of whom are executives at Nvidia.

WOULD THE BOARD PICK A TECH OR FINANCE HEAD?

One of the simplest ways to fill the void, some analysts said, would be to turn to the person who has joined Huang in quarterly results calls: CFO Kress. Kress, who is 59, joined Nvidia in 2013 after a long career at other tech industry giants including Microsoft, Cisco and chip maker Texas Instruments. Some members of Nvidia’s board favour appointing her as interim CEO, Semafor reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

"Colette Kress is the obvious choice to steady the ship. She has been CFO for 13 years and fronts every earnings call alongside him, so she’s a familiar and trusted voice for the market at a time when it badly needs one," said Josh Gilbert, lead analyst at trading platform eToro.

But he added, "The permanent job is a different story, though, because Nvidia’s edge comes from its technology, and the board would likely want an engineer in the chair. Someone like Ian Buck, who led the software platform that keeps developers tied to Nvidia’s chips, is the sort of internal name you’d expect to come up."

Engineer Buck, who joined in 2004, helped launch AI on Nvidia chips and was a leader in developing the CUDA software system. His prowess at solving "wickedly hard” technical problems could be crucial to guiding Nvidia's development, no matter who is CEO.

Buck manages Nvidia's AI hardware and software products as head of product for hyperscale AI. He has a PhD from Stanford for work that led to his AI-focused software at the California chip designer.

Odds on prediction market website Polymarket showed an 83 per cent chance that Huang would resign or be removed by the end of the year. Odds for his successor favoured Buck, with Kress second; however, volume on that market is small.

"My bigger concern is next decade, because Jensen isn't simply Nvidia's CEO but he's the person who has consistently identified where computing is going," said Shay Boloor, chief market strategist of Futurum Equities. 

"If a transition becomes necessary then Ian Buck is the strongest long-term internal candidate given his role in creating CUDA and leading Nvidia’s hyperscale business," he said.

Boloor added that Arm CEO and former Nvidia executive Haas could be an external candidate worth considering. A banker working on chips deals told Reuters that Haas made the most "logical sense" because he was high profile and also understood the semiconductor industry.

Reuters did not receive immediate responses to emails to the companies requesting comment from Kress, Buck and Haas.

Buck himself, who is about 49, based on a recent Business Insider story, can be modest about his abilities. 

“One of the most challenging parts of my job often is to try to predict the future, but AI is always surprising us,” Buck said at a Bank of America conference last year. "Inference is hard. It’s wickedly hard,” Buck told Reuters earlier this year, referring to the process in which AI answers user questions.

An author page on Nvidia's website holds a small trove of articles that show off Buck's tech chops, delving into how to "advance agentic and physical AI", AI and cybersecurity, and deals with companies including Microsoft and Oracle.

Armina Rosenberg, portfolio manager and co-founder at Minotaur Capital in Sydney, which owns Nvidia shares, wondered if the board would choose the best of both worlds, since finding a permanent replacement would not be quick. 

"The more realistic route is an interim leader from the long-serving inner circle, possibly as a co-CEO structure: one leader to steady the business and the finances, such as Colette Kress, alongside a product and technology leader, such as Ian Buck," she said.