When Colette Kress joined Nvidia in September 2013, the company’s stock price was about 40 cents apiece. Less than a year later, the cost of shares had risen by just a few pennies per share.
Over a decade after Colette Kress started working at Nvidia, the company’s market capitalization hit $3 trillion, and its stock price was around $150 per share, giving it a valuation more than double Microsoft’s and nearly four times Intel’s. Looking at the whole picture, much, if not most, of Nvidia’s staggering success can be attributed to its cutting-edge GPUs (graphics processing units), which are in high demand amid the AI boom.
But Kress is also a key figure behind the company’s success, joining its top ranks and helping guide chipmaker Nvidia to the financial heights that co-founders Jensen Huang, Curtis Priem, and Chris Malachowsky never even dreamed of when they started the company in 1993.
Kress’s education and career experience
One bio of Colette Kress states that she holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University. This background equipped her well to take on senior positions at major companies.
One of these is the software juggernaut Microsoft, where Kress worked for 13 years, including many years as CFO of the Server and Tools division. Kress has also worked at Cisco and Texas Instruments.
What Colette Kress does at Nvidia
Kress typically does all the talking on Nvidia’s earnings calls each quarter and usually has glowing earnings to report, as AI’s boom made Nvidia’s chips in high demand.
For instance, during Nvidia’s February 2025 earnings call, the company reported $39.33bn in revenue, well above expectations. Kress said demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU `exceeded’ expectations, but also pointed out that the impact of the tariffs levied by the Trump Administration remained `a bit of an unknown’.
In the year 2024, the value of all Nvidia shares exceeded $2 trillion and then broke $3 trillion. A rise so quick and so high had never been seen before.
In terms of revenue, only Apple exceeds Nvidia, while a $3 trillion company, Microsoft, is close behind.
Colette Kress Net Worth 2025
The Tech Titan Colette Kress’s net worth is unknown. But her compensation was about $13.3 million in 2023, so one imagines that figure has jumped quite a bit in the past couple of years, given the company’s success.
In fact, public data shows that Nvidia’s employees as a group saw a 17% increase in pay for the fiscal year 2024. This is a salary hike far in excess of what most corporations ever offer their employees.
