Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO on Thursday (November 12) amid an ongoing controversy surrounding his alleged extramarital relationships, including one with a businesswoman suspected of having links to Chinese intelligence. Following his resignation, Colette Kress, Nvidia's executive vice president and chief financial officer, agreed to take over as interim CEO. According to reports, three Indian-origin technology executives — Sanjay Mehrotra, Nikesh Arora and Thomas Kurian — are among the potential candidates being considered to succeed Huang at the helm of Nvidia. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia has brought in an external recruitment firm to help scout and assess potential candidates for the top job. 1) An Indian-American business leader, Mehrotra currently heads Micron Technology. Before taking up the position, he co-founded SanDisk and served as its president and CEO from 2011 until Western Digital acquired the company in 2016. Following the announcement of Mark Durcan's retirement in February 2017, Mehrotra was named CEO of Micron Technology. 2) Arora is an Indian-American corporate executive who currently serves as the chairman and CEO of cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. "During his tenure of seven years, he has led the company through a major transformation to become the global leader in AI and cybersecurity, and the security partner of choice for enterprise organizations and governments around the world. Before joining Palo Alto Networks in 2018, Mr. Arora served as president and chief operating officer of SoftBank Group Corp," the company's website states. Before his stint at SoftBank, Arora spent a decade as a senior executive at Google. 3) Thomas Kurian is an Indian-American business executive who currently serves as the CEO of Google Cloud. He began his professional career at McKinsey & Company, where he spent six years working as a consultant in London and Brussels, advising clients across the software, telecommunications and financial services sectors. In 1996, Kurian joined Oracle, taking up several roles in product management and development before moving into the company's senior leadership. He later became vice president of Oracle's e-Business division, where he spearheaded initiatives aimed at transforming the company into an e-business enterprise. He subsequently took charge of Oracle Fusion Middleware before serving as senior vice president of the Server Technologies Division, overseeing the development and delivery of Oracle Application Servers. Kurian joined Google's Cloud division in November 2018. Other names reportedly being considered include Nvidia CFO Colette Kress and vice-president Ian Buck, who helped develop CUDA, the software that powers Nvidia's graphics processors used in AI computing. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) also floated Apple CEO Tim Cook as a potential candidate to lead Nvidia, praising his role in building one of the world's most successful companies. "Anybody can be replaced. So it's very hard to replace him. But I had an idea this morning that I sort of just released. Tim Cook, he just sort of semi-retired from Apple. He's done one of the greatest jobs in the history of business. I think Tim Cook would be a great candidate to run Nvidia," Trump said. Praising Cook's leadership, Trump credited him with turning Apple's innovations and designs into a global business powerhouse. He also suggested that Apple might not have reached its current stature had its co-founder, Steve Jobs, been alive. Huang has reportedly been involved in alleged relationships with several women, including Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman suspected by US intelligence agencies of having links to Beijing's intelligence network, and Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare. In a separate report, Reuters said Huang had also allegedly been involved in an intimate relationship with another Nvidia employee. The news agency cited two people familiar with the matter. Sumit Sharma is a Deputy News Editor at Times Now with around a decade of experience across print, electronic, and digital media. Previously, he worke... View More