Nvidia's board has promised to look inside and outside the company for a permanent successor to Jensen Huang, and in the days before his resignation was announced on Nov. 12, reporters, analysts and headhunting chatter had already produced a list of about a dozen names. They range from Nvidia's own vice president for accelerated computing, Ian Buck, to the chief executives of rivals AMD and Arm. Nvidia has named no candidate, and none of the people below has commented on the speculation.

For Asian investors the choice is more than a governance story. Nvidia's next chief will set the product road map and purchasing plans that fill order books at foundries in Taiwan, memory makers in Korea and server assemblers across the region. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is running the company on an interim basis, and the board led by new chair Harvey Jones has given no timetable.

The names from The Information

The most widely cited list came from The Information, which reported that headhunters may already be scouting the industry, according to a Nov. 10 summary by Hong Kong's The Standard.

Lisa Su, AMD. The Information credited Su with sharply lifting AMD's revenue, The Standard said. It also flagged two obstacles: the rivalry between AMD and Nvidia, and Su's family ties to Huang. India's The Week described her as Huang's cousin.

Rene Haas, Arm. The same report presented the Arm chief as potentially the stronger outside option, noting that he spent seven years at Nvidia and knows the chip industry, The Standard said. Dave Altavilla, an analyst quoted by Newsweek, called Haas an "intriguing external possibility" for the same reasons.

Ian Buck, Nvidia. Buck was named in media reports citing analysts and former employees, The Standard said. The Week reported that he led development of CUDA, the software platform that keeps developers tied to Nvidia hardware, has been at the company for 22 years and oversees its data center and computing businesses. Altavilla told Newsweek that Buck was a possible longer-term internal pick.

Colette Kress, Nvidia. The Information cast Kress as a possible interim replacement rather than a long-term plan, according to The Standard. That is the role she now holds. Newsweek quoted analyst Dan Ives saying she could serve as interim chief, and Jay Aldebert called her the "natural interim." Yale management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described her as a stabilizer, Newsweek said.

Outsiders floated by analysts

Newsweek's Nov. 10 survey of commentators produced a wider outside list.

Sonnenfeld named former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Apple executive chairman Tim Cook, saying either could be well received by markets, employees, customers and regulators, according to Newsweek. Neither man has indicated any interest.

Aldebert named former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and Haas as outside candidates and mentioned Su and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, while noting potential obstacles for the two sitting chief executives, Newsweek reported. He told the magazine the "outside list is shorter than people think" and said the board should look internally first for any interim leader.

The Week listed Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman and Schmidt as names that "many cite," without attributing them to a specific analyst or report. The same article mentioned Huang's children, Madison Huang, a senior director of physical AI product marketing, and Spencer Huang, a director of robotics product management, as well as Nvidia vice president Nico Caprez, who it said recently married Madison.

U.S. President Donald Trump, asked about Huang at a White House briefing on Nov. 9, did not name a successor. He said Huang had "absolutely no idea" the person was a spy and called him "a very honorable man," Newsweek reported. The allegations concern a former executive of Singapore-based customer Megaspeed; no one has been charged and China has rejected the spying claims.

The executive bench nobody has named

Two of Nvidia's longest-serving executives did not appear in the reports reviewed by Capital Times, though they sit at the top of the company's own org chart. Nvidia's annual report, filed in February, lists five executive officers: Huang, Kress, General Counsel Timothy Teter and two operating chiefs.

Ajay "Jay" Puri, 71 as of February, was listed as executive vice president of worldwide field operations, a post he took in 2009, after joining in 2005 as head of sales and spending 22 years at Sun Microsystems, the filing shows. Debora Shoquist, also 71 then, joined in 2007 and has been executive vice president of operations since 2009. She previously ran operations at JDS Uniphase and a hard disk drive division at Quantum, according to the 10-K. Nvidia's leadership web page now lists Nick Parker as executive vice president of worldwide field operations, Malaysia's The Vibes reported on Nov. 10. Their ages make either an unlikely long-term choice, but both know Nvidia's customers and suppliers better than almost anyone outside Huang.

Analysts say the bench is thin by design. About 60 senior executives reported directly to Huang, The Standard said, and Ives told Newsweek there was "no succession plan."

What the betting markets said

Prediction markets priced Huang's exit before they priced any successor. On Nov. 9, Kalshi traders put a 33% chance on Huang leaving as CEO before July 2027, while a Polymarket contract gave 16% for an announced resignation or removal by year end, Fortune reported. Three days later he was gone. Fortune did not report any market on who would replace him.

The board's next public moment is Tuesday, Nov. 17, when Kress presents third-quarter fiscal 2027 results. Analysts will be listening for any word on the search, which Nvidia has said will consider internal and external candidates.