Colette M. Kress, 59, is Nvidia’s interim chief executive. Nvidia’s 8-K of 12 November says the board appointed its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer “to serve as interim Chief Executive Officer, while the Board conducts a search for a new Chief Executive Officer”, after accepting the resignation of Jen-Hsun Huang. Kress keeps the CFO job, a post held since September 2013.
In those years Nvidia’s annual revenue rose from $4.13 billion in fiscal 2014 to $215.9 billion in fiscal 2026, its latest 10-K shows: 52.3 times, by our arithmetic. This explainer sets out the professional record in Nvidia’s own filings: the interim role, the career before Nvidia, what the CFO job covers, pay and shareholding.
Last updated: 12 November 2026. An evergreen profile; we update it when Nvidia files new information on the role.
Business Pill · Free Cash Flow Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on free cash flow, the gap between profit on paper and cash in the bank that a finance chief reports on. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Nvidia.
The key insight: As we read the filings together, the interim CEO comes from the finance seat: Kress has signed Nvidia’s 10-K filings as Principal Financial Officer and keeps the CFO title, so the executive who presented the numbers through a 52.3-times revenue rise, by our arithmetic, now also runs the company.
The 8-K says Kress “will continue in that role” while serving as interim CEO. The release attached to it says Kress “has agreed to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer” and will remain CFO “until a permanent successor has been named”. The board “will consider internal and external candidates”, the release says.
Kress signed the 8-K itself, as “Interim Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer”. The release says Nvidia will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Tuesday, 17 November, “as previously scheduled”. The resignation itself is covered in our report on the CEO change.
Nvidia annual revenue by fiscal year, fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2026, from its Form 10-K filings; fiscal years end in late January. Kress joined as CFO in September 2013, during fiscal 2014. The 52.3x multiple is our arithmetic.
Career Before Nvidia: Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Cisco
Nvidia’s fiscal 2014 10-K says Kress joined in September 2013 as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; it listed Kress at 46 in March 2014. The filing lists the offer letter, dated 13 September 2013, as an exhibit.
Before Nvidia, the 10-K says, Kress spent eight years at Texas Instruments in “a variety of finance positions”. From 1997 to 2010 Kress held a variety of positions at Microsoft, including, from 2006, Chief Financial Officer of the Server and Tools division.
From 2010 Kress was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Business Technology and Operations Finance organization at Cisco Systems. There, the filing says, Kress “was responsible for financialstrategy, planning, reporting and business development for all business segments, engineering and operations”. The 10-K lists a B.S. in Finance from the University of Arizona and an M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University.
What the CFO Job Covers at Nvidia
The 12 November release says that during that tenure Kress “has led the company’s finance organization”. In the fiscal 2026 10-K, Kress signed as Principal Financial Officer, and the exhibit list carries the Chief Financial Officer certifications required by Rules 13a-14(a) and 13a-14(b).
Nvidia’s results 8-K of 26 August 2026, for example, attached “financial information and commentary by Colette M. Kress” on the quarter to 26 July, and the release announced a conference call with analysts and investors that day. Kress signed that 8-K as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Nvidia Revenue in the CFO Years
Revenue was $4,130 million in fiscal 2014, the year ended 26 January 2014, the 10-K for that year shows. It reached $60,922 million in fiscal 2024, $130,497 million in fiscal 2025 and $215,938 million in fiscal 2026, the latest 10-K shows. Fiscal 2026 revenue was 52.3 times fiscal 2014’s, by our arithmetic.
Net income went from $440.0 million in fiscal 2014 to $120,067 million in fiscal 2026, about 273 times, by our arithmetic. The figures are Nvidia’s; the multiples are ours, and they describe the company over the period, not any one executive’s contribution.
Pay and Shareholding
Nvidia’s 2026 proxy statement lists Kress’s total pay for fiscal 2026 at $14,340,850: a salary of $898,577, stock awards of $12,825,872, a cash incentive of $600,000 and $16,402 of other compensation. Totals were $21,362,532 for fiscal 2025 and $13,266,792 for fiscal 2024. Stock awards were 89.4% of the fiscal 2026 total, by our arithmetic.
The proxy set a target base salary of $900,000 and target variable cash of $300,000, and says fiscal 2026 revenue exceeded the Stretch Compensation Plan goal, “resulting in 200% payout under Variable Cash Plan ($600,000)”. It lists 442,087 shares vested in fiscal 2026, valued at $63,881,560, and 569,889 unvested units at 25 January 2026. It says “we do not have employment, severance, or change-in-control agreements with our executive officers”.
Kress beneficially owned 4,443,523 shares on 23 March 2026, under 1%, the proxy shows. A Form 4 filed on 18 September records 40,747 shares withheld for taxes on vesting units and 34,918 shares sold on 17 September under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted on 16 June, at weighted average prices of $218.01 to $219.59. After them, the form lists 765,103 shares held directly and 4,775,733 directly and indirectly, by our sum of its rows.
At the 11 November close of $173.73, those 4,775,733 shares were worth about $829.7 million, by our arithmetic. The fiscal 2026 10-K also records a Rule 10b5-1 plan Kress adopted on 18 December 2025 covering 500,000 shares, with an expiration date of 23 March 2027. The former CEO’s holdings are in our stake analysis.
The Structural Read
As we read the 8-K and release, the interim arrangement combines two roles in one person until a permanent successor is named, and the filings set no end date for it.
As we read the proxy, Kress’s pay is weighted to stock: 89.4% of the fiscal 2026 total, by our arithmetic, with no employment or severance agreement, the same terms the proxy describes for every executive officer.
Harvey Jones, Chair of the NVIDIA Board, in the release attached to the 8-K, 12 November 2026
“The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.”
Three Implications
FOR INVESTORS The release says third-quarter fiscal 2027 results come on 17 November as previously scheduled; Kress signed the August results 8-K as CFO.
FOR GOVERNANCE The 8-K and release we read do not appoint Kress to the board, which the release says now has its first-ever Chair, Harvey C. Jones.
FOR PAY The proxy lists fiscal 2026 pay of $14,340,850 and says Nvidia has no employment, severance or change-in-control agreements with its executive officers.
The framework says: “Three competitive categories within one layer: generalist substrate (NVIDIA), hyperscaler custom (TPU, Trainium, MTIA), merchant custom challengers (Cerebras, Groq, SambaNova).”
As we read it, the framework places Nvidia by its products and customers; the revenue in this profile is the financial record of that position. The framework does not discuss Nvidia’s management.
Salary, stock awards (grant-date value) and cash incentive for Colette M. Kress as EVP and CFO, fiscal 2024 to 2026, from the Summary Compensation Table in Nvidia’s 2026 proxy statement. Totals include all other compensation. The 89.4% stock share is our arithmetic.
What Is Not Established
The 8-K and release we read describe no change to Kress’s pay for the interim role and do not appoint Kress to the board. The latest Form 4 by Kress that we found on EDGAR at 14:30 UTC on 12 November was filed on 18 September; holdings may have changed since. How boards handle a chief executive’s exit is set out in our explainer on board removal. Nvidia was not contacted for this piece.
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Colette M. Kress, 59, has been Nvidia’s CFO since September 2013 and is now also interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent chief executive, the 8-K says. Before Nvidia, Kress held finance roles at Texas Instruments, Microsoft and Cisco. Nvidia’s revenue rose 52.3 times between fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2026, by our arithmetic; Kress’s fiscal 2026 pay was $14.3 million, mostly stock.
A note on sourcing. We read Nvidia’s 8-K of 12 November and its attached release in full, and took the career record, revenue, net income and signatures from Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2014 10-K filings, pay and ownership from the 2026 proxy statement, share transactions from the Form 4 filed on 18 September, and the CFO Commentary from the results 8-K of 26 August, all on SEC EDGAR.
The closing price is a delayed Yahoo Finance quote. Multiples, shares and values are our arithmetic. This profile covers the professional record only. Nvidia was not contacted for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
