Nvidia director Persis Drell resigns with $26 million worth of stock after decade on board

Nvidia director Persis Drell, an engineering professor at Stanford, resigned on Wednesday after just over a decade on the chipmaker’s board of directors, the company said in a filing with the SEC on Friday.

Drell, 70, stepped down to pursue a “new professional opportunity,” Nvidia said, and not because of a disagreement with company or any matter related to its operations or policies.

Drell, who served on the compensation committee, is the first Nvidia board member to depart since astronaut Ellen Ochoa resigned in June. The board now has 10 directors, including CEO Jensen Huang.

Drell owns close to 143,000 Nvidia shares, worth about $26 million, according to the latest holdings report. She was paid about $344,000 for her work with Nvidia last year, including almost $259,000 in stock awards, the company’s annual report said.

Nvidia’s stock price is up over 22,000% since the end of 2015, emerging as the most valuable company in the world thanks to the artificial intelligence boom. Drell sold about 40,000 shares last year.

Drell has been a professor at Stanford since 2002, serving as the dean of the engineering school from 2014 to 2017 and as Stanford’s provost from 2017 to 2023. She was also director of Stanford’s particle accelerator, called SLAC, from 2007 to 2012.

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that Persis Drell is 70 years old. A previous version misstated her age.

WATCH: Chinese AI models adapt without Nvidia