Colette Kress now runs the company at the center of the artificial intelligence boom, making her the most powerful woman in technology at the moment the industry can least afford a misstep.
Kress, Nvidia's longtime chief financial officer, has stepped into the chief executive role on an interim basis, taking charge of the firm whose chips underpin nearly every major AI buildout on the planet. She has spent years as the executive translating Nvidia's explosive growth into numbers for Wall Street, joining the company's leadership on virtually every quarterly earnings call and holding a grasp of its finances that few people anywhere can match.
The timing raises the stakes considerably. Nvidia sits at the intersection of technology, geopolitics and the broader economy, with export restrictions, supply constraints and hundreds of billions of dollars in planned data center spending all pressing on the same desk. Kress will be the one weighing those calls, even if only temporarily.
Her elevation follows a pointed omission. Asked earlier this fall to name powerful women in tech, her predecessor and Nvidia's longtime leader pointed to Meta executive Dina Powell and Google's Ruth Porat, explaining that he sees them when he is in Washington, and only after further prompting added SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell. Kress, the highest ranking woman at his own company, went unmentioned.
Whether the interim title becomes permanent rests with Nvidia's board. What is already clear is that the executive once overlooked in a casual conversation now holds one of the most consequential jobs in the global economy.