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Kimberly Powell, Vice President of Healthcare at NVIDIA. /Screenshot from NVIDIA's official website

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has come under renewed scrutiny following allegations of an extramarital relationship with one of his company's executives, after acknowledging an affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. Attention has now turned to the executive at the center of the latest allegations.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on Nov. 11 (local time), citing five current and former NVIDIA employees, that Huang had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, NVIDIA's married Vice President of Healthcare.

Two former NVIDIA employees said they had seen a video showing Huang and Powell being affectionate together at a hotel in San Jose, California, during NVIDIA's annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in March. The NYT said it had not independently reviewed the video.

Powell is reportedly one of approximately 60 executives who report directly to Huang. According to profiles published on NVIDIA's blog and LinkedIn, she studied electrical engineering at Northeastern University. She worked as a hardware engineer at DOME Imaging Systems, a U.S. manufacturer of medical imaging displays, from 1999 to 2003, before spending just over five years in diagnostic display systems engineering and product management at U.S. display manufacturer Planar Systems.

After joining NVIDIA in 2008, Powell oversaw efforts to establish graphics processing units (GPUs) as computing acceleration platforms for medical imaging equipment. She was promoted to Senior Director of AI Business Development in 2016 in recognition of her work leading the company's higher education and research business, strategic technology evangelism programs, NVIDIA AI Labs and NVIDIA Inception program, among other initiatives. She has served as Vice President of Healthcare since the following year.

Powell oversees NVIDIA's healthcare business, including platforms for accelerated computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and visualization that support ecosystems in medical imaging, life sciences, drug discovery and healthcare analytics.

Powell has represented NVIDIA as a speaker at technology conferences around the world. She had been scheduled to speak at the opening session of the Milken Institute's Future of Health Summit, held at the Potomac Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 11–12, but canceled her appearance after the allegations surfaced.

                                                                                                             Kim Hyun-min