Sonnenfeld, Tian and Henriques: What Comes Next for NVIDIA After Jensen Huang

BREAKING NEWS ALERT — NEW YORK (RICHTVX.COM) — Jensen Huang, the co-founder who built NVIDIA into the most important company in artificial intelligence, has left the chip giant. In a filing on November 12, 2026, NVIDIA said Huang resigned as president, chief executive and director with immediate effect. Chief financial officer Colette Kress becomes interim CEO and keeps her finance role until a permanent successor is chosen, and director Harvey C. Jones becomes the company’s first board chair. NVIDIA still plans to report its third-quarter results on November 17.

The exit followed a week of fast-moving reports. On November 8 the board opened an independent investigation into reports that Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. On November 11 The New York Times reported that he allegedly had a relationship with an executive who reports to him, and The Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to remove him. None of the allegations has been proven.

Yale’s CEO experts: the board made the right call

Writing in TIME, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management, Steven Tian, research director of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, and Stephen Henriques, a senior fellow at the institute, argue that NVIDIA’s directors had three choices — remove Huang, send him on leave, or let him off with a reprimand — and chose correctly. Because Huang holds only a single-digit share of the company and NVIDIA has no dual-class stock, they note, the decision belonged to the board, not to him.

The authors stress that boards rarely fire a chief executive over private conduct alone, but do act once they lose trust in a leader. They also point to a structural weakness: a founder running one of the world’s most valuable companies with some 60 direct reports and no public succession plan.

Who could lead NVIDIA next

Inside the company, the three authors see two strong candidates: Colette Kress, the long-serving CFO with deep ties to investors and partners, and Ian Buck, the vice president who runs NVIDIA’s hyperscale business and knows its largest customers. They suggest the two could even share the job for a time. History backs the idea, they write: finance chiefs and general counsels have stepped up successfully in a crisis at Wynn Resorts, United Technologies, Home Depot and DuPont.

If the board looks outside, the authors name two leaders who have worked beside famous founders: Tim Cook, who followed Steve Jobs at Apple and grew it into a multi-trillion-dollar company, and Eric Schmidt, who joined Google’s founders as chief executive in 2001.

The lesson for every board

Their conclusion reaches far beyond NVIDIA. Companies such as Polaroid, Digital Equipment and Wang Labs faded, the authors argue, because their boards could not separate the institution from its founder, while Apple thrived after Jobs because a successor had been prepared. Whether NVIDIA can do the same, they write, now rests with its directors. Huang’s supporters credit him with one of the greatest runs in business history, and the company has not commented on the details of the reports.

Sources: NVIDIA filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, November 12, 2026; TIME, commentary by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian and Stephen Henriques, November 11, 2026 · Reported for RICHTVX, New York Edition. Picture: RICHTVX photo illustration.