Stanford professor Persis Drell steps down from Nvidia’s board of directors

Academic leaves to pursue "new professional challenge"

Trade

Prof Persis Drell

Persis Drell, a professor of engineering at Stanford, has resigned from Nvidia’s board of directors after more than 10 years. Nvidia announced her departure on Friday in a filing with the SEC. Drell cited the pursuit of a “new professional challenge” as the reason for her resignation and stated that there were no disagreements with the company regarding its operations or policies. This is the first departure since astronaut Ellen Ochoa stepped down last June. The board now has 10 members, including CEO Jensen Huang.

Drell, who served on the remuneration committee, owns around 143,000 Nvidia shares, worth approximately $26 million (€22 million) according to recent filings. Last year, she received around $344,000 (€291,000) in compensation for her role on the board, including nearly $259,000 (€219,000) in stock awards.

Nvidia’s share price has seen remarkable growth, rising by more than 22,000% since the end of 2015, fuelled by the rise of artificial intelligence. Drell sold around 40,000 shares last year.

After the market closed, Nvidia’s share price slipped slightly in after-hours trading to $187.25, a modest loss of 0.22%.

Drell is a leading academic and has been a professor at Stanford since 2002. From 2014 to 2017, she was dean of the School of Engineering and from 2017 to 2023 she served as Stanford’s provost. In addition, from 2007 to 2012 she headed SLAC, Stanford’s particle accelerator.

Business AM

Read More: Nvidia