Who Will Be Nvidia's Next CEO? Inside the Board's Search

NVIDIA's board has moved beyond crisis management and into succession planning: according to a Form 8-K filed with the SEC on November 11-12, 2026, the board named longtime director Harvey C. Jones as the company's first-ever independent Chair, and has formally opened a search for a permanent CEO that will weigh both internal and external candidates. The move comes two days after Jensen Huang's resignation and follows an investigation the board opened on Nov. 9, but it marks the first concrete step toward life after Huang — and Nvidia says its Q3 FY2027 earnings report and call will proceed as scheduled on Nov. 17.

Nvidia Names Harvey Jones as Its First-Ever Board Chair

Until this week, Nvidia's board had never had a formal, standalone Chair — Jensen Huang held the CEO title and a board seat, and Stephen C. Neal served as lead independent director. That changed on Nov. 11, 2026, when the board appointed Harvey C. Jones, 73, to the newly created role of Chair of the Board, according to Nvidia's Form 8-K filed with the SEC.

Jones is not a new face in Santa Clara. He has sat on Nvidia's board since 1993 — essentially since the company's earliest days — and has spent more than three decades as a technology executive and venture investor. Before Nvidia, he co-founded Daisy Systems Corp. in 1981 and led it as president and CEO, then ran chip-design software maker Synopsys as CEO and later Executive Chairman from 1987 to 1998. He also co-founded processor-IP firm Tensilica in 1997 and chaired its board until Cadence Design Systems acquired it in 2013. Since 2004 he has been Managing Partner of Square Wave Ventures, a private investment firm, per his bio on Nvidia's board-of-directors page.

In Nvidia's press release announcing the change, Jones struck a business-as-usual tone, saying the board has "full confidence in Colette and the leadership team" and that he expects "operations, customer commitments, and the product roadmap" to continue without interruption. He also credited Kress with having "helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth."

The creation of a standalone Chair role is itself notable. Many large U.S. tech companies split the CEO and Chair roles as a matter of course, with an independent director overseeing board governance separately from day-to-day management. Nvidia had not formalized that split until this week — Huang combined the CEO and board-member roles for the company's entire public life, with Neal serving only as lead independent director rather than full Chair. Installing Jones, a 33-year board veteran with no operating role at Nvidia, as a dedicated independent Chair gives the company a single, named figure overseeing both the CEO search and ongoing board governance during the transition.

The Board Formally Opens Its Search for a Permanent CEO

The more consequential line in the filing is procedural: Nvidia's board says it "is initiating a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer and will consider internal and external candidates." That single sentence, confirmed in both the 8-K's exhibited press release and Nvidia's own newsroom announcement, is the first on-the-record acknowledgment that Kress's appointment is explicitly a bridge, not a lock on the job long-term — even though she keeps both the CEO and CFO titles while the process plays out.

Nvidia has not disclosed a timeline for the search, who is running it, or whether a search firm has been retained. The company also has not said whether Jones, in his new capacity as independent Chair, will personally lead the process — a role that would be typical for a board chair overseeing a CEO transition. For now, the filing's language is deliberately broad: both inside and outside hires are on the table.

That framing is a departure from how Nvidia handled Huang's exit just a day earlier, when the company's immediate language centered on continuity. For the full detail on how that resignation was announced, see our earlier coverage of Jensen Huang's resignation and Kress's appointment as interim CEO.

It's also worth noting what the filing does not say. There is no mention of an expected decision date, no reference to a specific search committee of named directors, and no confirmation that an executive-search firm has been engaged. Companies running public CEO searches sometimes disclose these details later, once a process is further along; Nvidia's 8-K and press release are, so far, limited to confirming that a search exists and naming its stated scope.

How We Got Here: A Timeline of Nvidia's Leadership Transition

The succession search is the latest step in a fast-moving sequence that played out over roughly one week.

Nvidia brought in Joon Kim specifically to run the independent-counsel side of the board's inquiry; our earlier report on why the board hired Joon Kim to probe Huang covers his background and mandate in more depth. That investigation and Huang's resignation are related but distinct from this week's news: the succession search is a forward-looking governance step, not a finding from the probe, which Nvidia has not said is complete.

A Brief Note on Why Huang Stepped Down

Huang's resignation followed the board's Nov. 8 statement announcing an investigation into reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort, a matter that was already public record before this week's filing. This article focuses on what happens next at the governance level, not on re-reporting that backstory; readers looking for that detail can find it in our prior coverage linked above.

Where Colette Kress Fits Into the Search

Kress, 59, has been Nvidia's EVP and CFO since September 2013 and now holds the interim CEO title as well, a dual role she keeps until the board names a permanent successor. Her finance background — nearly 25 years at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft before Nvidia, per the company's own filing — has made her the public face of Nvidia's day-to-day operations this week. In the newsroom release, Kress said simply that "NVIDIA's strength has always come from its people" and that "our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders."

Nvidia's filing does not say whether Kress is a candidate for the permanent job, only that she remains interim CEO while the board runs its process. For a fuller look at her background and rise at the company, see our explainer on who Colette Kress is and how she became Nvidia's interim CEO.

The Speculation: Who Could Be Next?

Important: none of the following has been confirmed by Nvidia. Beyond the board's official 8-K language — which only says it will weigh "internal and external candidates" without naming anyone — there has been active industry speculation about who those candidates might be. According to a report from The Information, which has been repeated by several other outlets, headhunters may already be sounding out potential successors, though Nvidia has not confirmed any search firm engagement or candidate list. The names below are reported industry chatter, not an official shortlist, and should be read as such.

It's worth repeating: Nvidia has named none of these four as a candidate. The company's only on-the-record statement is that the board "will consider internal and external candidates" for a permanent CEO — full stop. Everything else circulating is attributed speculation from industry reporting, not Nvidia disclosure.

Nvidia's Earnings Call Proceeds as Scheduled

One thing the board's filing makes explicit: none of this changes Nvidia's near-term financial calendar. The company says it will report Q3 fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2026, at approximately 1:20 p.m. PT, with the earnings call following at 2 p.m. PT — the same schedule that was set before Huang's resignation. That earnings report will be Kress's first as interim CEO, and the first under Jones as Chair.

What's Next: What to Watch at the Nov. 17 Call

With the governance mechanics now disclosed, the open questions shift to execution and disclosure:

• Will executives address the CEO search directly? Kress and Jones may face analyst questions about timeline, search-firm involvement, or whether a shortlist exists — Nvidia has not committed to discussing it on the call.
• Does guidance change? The filing framed the transition as not expected to disrupt operations, customer commitments or the product roadmap; the Nov. 17 numbers and forward guidance will be the first real test of that claim.
• Does the independent investigation produce findings? The board's inquiry into the matter that preceded Huang's resignation was ongoing as of this filing; any update tied to its findings would be a separate disclosure.
• Do further 8-Ks follow? Material steps in a CEO search — hiring a search firm, naming finalists, or naming a permanent CEO — would each typically trigger their own SEC filing and press release.

Until Nvidia says otherwise, the facts remain narrow: a new independent Chair is in place, a formal search is underway with no stated timeline, Kress runs the company in the interim, and the Nov. 17 earnings date hasn't moved.

Written byMara Lindqvist

Mara Lindqvist edits the hardware desk. She covers graphics cards, processors, memory and storage, the foundries and chip designers behind them, and what the numbers on a spec sheet mean for people choosing a PC. Specifications in her stories come from manufacturer spec pages and datasheets.

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