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- Nvidia made an outside hire to replace billionaire sales chief Jay Puri.
- 26-year Microsoft veteran Nick Parker has been tapped to lead its next phase.
- Analysts say Nvidia's next challenge is getting companies to actually use AI.
Nvidia is ushering in a new era for its global sales organization.
In June, Jay Puri — the chip giant's head of worldwide field operations, and a billionaire who served in Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's inner circle — told the company he is retiring after 21 years. He will transition to an advisory role.
To replace him, Nvidia looked outside its ranks — something of an unorthodox move for a C-Suite synonymous with long tenures, internal promotions, or executives coming in from acquisitions.
Nick Parker, a 26-year Microsoft veteran, joins Nvidia next month. Most recently, he served as executive vice president and chief business officer of Microsoft's worldwide sales and solutions organization.
Prior to his departure from Microsoft, Business Insider learned that Parker had just accepted a role leading its new $2.5 billion Microsoft Frontier Company, which connects 6,000 engineers and industry experts with its customers to help with AI. The role included a CEO title and a bigger head count than Parker's previous role, according to people familiar with the matter.
Per a securities filing, Parker's pay package at Nvidia includes $40 million in stock awards, a $5 million signing bonus, and a $1 million annual base salary.
The hire signals to Wall Street that Nvidia isn't "resting on its laurels" as the dominant AI chipmaker and is eyeing its next chapter of growth, said David Nicholson, chief technology advisor at The Futurum Group.
Puri steered Nvidia's global sales during its rise from a graphics card company into the world's dominant AI chip maker.
Parker inherits a different challenge. Rather than selling more AI chips, Nvidia needs to help customers successfully deploy AI — a job well suited to someone who spent 26 years selling enterprise technology at Microsoft.
Parker also brings deep relationships with governments, cloud providers, and other partners, said Brad Gastwirth, the global head of research and market intelligence at Circular Technology.
As Nvidia pushes deeper into business software, it faces a familiar challenge: helping large, highly regulated companies move from buying AI infrastructure to deploying it.
Earlier this year, Business Insider reported that Nvidia sales executives discussed how Bank of America struggled to deploy the chip giant's AI Factory software, highlighting common hurdles across industries.
Microsoft declined to comment. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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