Family pull, internal hires or tech CEO swap: Possible replacements surface as Nvidia board considers ousting CEO Jensen Huang

As Nvidia's Jensen Huang faces scrutiny over his alleged extramarital ‘affairs’ and a probe by US officials over national security concerns, the board of the chip company has been consulting an outside firm as they mull replacing the chief executive officer.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is likely to be ousted from the chip company over the recent row regarding his extramarital affairs and a Chinese spying plot. (REUTERS)Earlier this week, the Nvidia CEO admitted to having an extramarital affair in a letter to staff.

While Jensen did not name anyone, reports have identified the woman as Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman and a former executive at Megaspeed, which is Nvidia's main cloud partner for the Asia-Pacific region. Track LIVE updates on the Nvidia row here As per US government officials, Huang Le (Alice Huang's Chinese name), is suspected to be an intelligence asset for China.

Authorities have also claimed that under her, Megaspeed allowed the transhipment of Nvidia's AI chips to Beijing, which have been prohibited by Washington. The Singapore-based firm has denied any wrongdoing. Also Read | Jensen Huang had a second affair with Nvidia executive who reports to him: Report Trouble mounted for Jensen Huang as a New York Times report dropped on Wednesday claimed he was in another extramarital affair with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare.

With Huang now on the back foot and no known plan of succession at Nvidia, the field is wide open for a variety of replacements to lead one of the key AI players. There are several names in the mix for the next CEO of Nvidia, according to multiple tech and financial publications, including the Financial Times, and news agencies.

These options are either an internal hire, a family pull or a tech CEO swap. Colette Kress is currently Nvidia's chief financial officer and a relatively easy choice for the board, as per news agencies AFP and Bloomberg.

Another name is Ian Buck, who oversees Nvidia's data centre clients. Buck was also a key mind behind the software that keeps Nvidia-designed chips in demand. However, as per Bloomberg, Buck lacks the operational experience that investors often look for at the head of a large publicly traded company.

Business magazine Inc. has also listed Nvidia's vice president of applied deep learning research, Bryan Catanzano, as a possible pick. According to some reports, Jay Puri, who has served as executive vice president of Worldwide Field Operations responsible for NVIDIA's global business, could also be in the fray for the interim CEO’s post.

He has overseen the company's sales, business development, partner alliances, solution architecture and engineering, program management and support services organisations. During his tenure, he also established himself as a longtime confidant of Jensen Huang, according to the Financial Times.

Nvidia could also pick a member of Huang's family when choosing the next CEO. Also Read | How Nvidia's board can remove Jensen Huang, and what his exit could mean for AI chip race As per reports, Jensen Huang's daughter Madison Huang is currently the senior director of product marketing at Nvidia and is among the names most suggested by analysts.

Another name is his son, Spencer Huang, who currently works as the director of product management in Nvidia's robotics division. Huang's son-in-law Nico Caprez, also works at the company as vice president of Global AI Infrastructure Growth.

The board could also look at hiring a CEO from another tech company. The first name which comes to mind for this is Lisa Su, the CEO of semiconductor giant AMD.