Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy has led to questions about a potential successor and whether the chip-maker’s CFO could fit the bill, at least on a temporary basis.
Huang, the company’s founder and chief executive who exercises outsized political and corporate power, could be difficult to replace outright, experts say. But Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress’s skills could provide stability should Huang need to step away from leadership, Shawn Cole, president of executive search firm Cowen Partners, told CFO Dive.
“Naming Colette Kress Interim CEO or Co-CEO, if Jensen were to go on temporary leave, during the investigation would have a stabilizing impact on the business,” Cole said in an email to CFO Dive Tuesday.
In a Sunday message to the company, Huang informed Nvidia employees that he had an extramarital affair and apologized to his colleagues and family. Also on Sunday, Nvidia’s board of directors announced an independent investigation into the matter.
“The NVIDIA Board is initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort,” the company said in a Sunday statement.
The company said Jensen is cooperating and said it has “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were comprised” and said it has “confidence in Jensen and his leaderhip team.”
The relationship was between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and a Chinese business executive whom U.S. intelligence agencies have determined was a spy for China, according to The New York Times. China has rejected the claims, the paper added.
The scandal has led to governance concern about “key-man risk” at Nvidia which is the phenomenon where well-known figures in a business are irreplaceable, Marketwatch reported, noting that Jason Schloetzer, an associate professor of accounting and management strategy at Georgetown University named Kress as a possible interim CEO should Huang leave the post.
Kress has served as EVP/CFO of Nvidia since joining the company in September of 2013, according to her LinkeedIn account. Previously she was SVP and CFO of business technology and operations finance at Cisco and before that she was a corporate VP at Microsoft.
Cole said he hesitatated to speculate whether Kress would replace Jensen but called her a viable option.
“Given the nature of NVIDIA's business, a CFO with Kress's experience could be a logical choice for CEO, particularly if the board's immediate priorities were continuity, investor confidence, and operational stability,” Cole said. “The CFO is already a natural steward of the company's financial interests and shareholder value – we’re seeing this more often during times of scandal.”
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
