11 names to watch in the Jensen Huang succession search

As Jensen Huang stepped down as Nvidia's CEO, the tech giant began searching for a permanent replacement. The role of the next leader is crucial, as they would inherit one of the world's most valuable companies and face the challenge of succeeding Huang, who transformed Nvidia into an AI powerhouse. Colette Kress, Nvidia's CFO, is a leading contender for the position due to her deep understanding of the company's business and customers.

She has been representing Nvidia on investor calls for over a decade and is the only executive besides Huang with significant visibility across the company. However, her finance background could raise doubts about her ability to match Huang's technological prowess. Ian Buck, Nvidia's vice president and general manager of hyperscale and high-performance computing, is another potential successor.

He helped develop CUDA, Nvidia's computing platform, and has a strong engineering background. Chris Malachowsky, who co-founded Nvidia with Huang, is also considered a contender. He has been instrumental in managing the company's core technologies as it grew from a startup to a global leader in accelerated computing. Rene Haas, CEO of British chip designer Arm Holdings, is an outside contender due to his experience in the chip industry and previous work at Nvidia.

Tim Cook, former CEO of Apple, has also been mentioned as a potential successor, although it is unclear whether he would want the job after recently stepping down as Apple's CEO. Johny Srouji, Apple's chief hardware officer, and Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, have also been identified as potential successors, although their experience is more focused on other areas of tech rather than chip development.