When a board weighs ousting a founder who has led the company for 33 years, the first question is who comes next. At Nvidia, the honest answer is that nobody knows. Jensen Huang, 63, is the company's first and only CEO, and according to reports he has no known successor. Here is what is on the table.
Colette Kress: interim CEO?
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress is the name most often raised in reports as a possible interim CEO. She knows the investors and the numbers well, which is exactly what the board needs for a transition: stability with Wall Street. What she lacks, at least in public perception, is identification with the technological and strategic vision, which was always Huang's.
Stephen Neal: a director as interim CEO
Another option raised is for lead independent director Stephen Neal to serve as interim CEO. It is a common solution in companies in crisis: someone from the board holds the company until a permanent CEO is found. The downside is that it is by definition crisis management, not leadership.
Huang stays, with less power
According to a Fortune analysis, the board may choose a middle path: Huang stays CEO, but with tighter oversight, limits on his authority and perhaps a strong outside chair. It is the scenario that best protects the business in the short term, but the least convincing in governance terms.
The real problem
At companies such as Microsoft or Disney, CEO transitions were planned years in advance. At Nvidia, the whole structure was built around one person, and it seems no one prepared for the day after. That is exactly what the board will have to explain to investors, whatever it decides: how a company worth trillions, which many see as the infrastructure of the AI revolution, got here without a succession plan.
