AMD's Lisa Su Named Yahoo Finance's 2026 CEO of the Year — the Same Day Her Cousin Jensen Huang Resigned

Yahoo Finance named AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su its 2026 CEO of the Year on 12 November 2026 — the same day her cousin-once-removed Jensen Huang resigned from Nvidia. The award, announced by Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi at the Yahoo Finance Invest 2026 event, caps a year in which AMD shares rose 158%, the company's market value crossed $1 trillion for the first time, and its data-center business nearly doubled in a single quarter. It is a real award for a real year. It is not, as some of the social-media graphics suggest, a coronation — and the family connection in the headlines needs one correction before anything else.

Su and Huang are not first cousins. They are first cousins once removed: Huang's mother and Su's maternal grandfather were siblings, which makes Huang a first cousin of Su's mother and puts the two CEOs a generation apart. Su herself has called them "distant relatives". The rest of this article keeps that straight — and keeps the award in proportion too, because the numbers behind it are genuinely extraordinary without any exaggeration.

The award: what it is, and who announced it

Yahoo Finance's CEO of the Year is an annual editorial award: the publication's editors pick the chief executive they judge to have had the defining year in business. For 2026, that was Lisa Su. The announcement came on Thursday 12 November 2026 from Brian Sozzi, Yahoo Finance's executive editor, at the company's Invest 2026 event, where Sozzi interviewed Su on stage. The interview — titled "Lisa Su: Demand exceeds supply, and the market is being shortsighted" — had her arguing that demand for computing is running ahead of what AMD can supply, and that a market worrying about AI spending is being shortsighted, because compute is what intelligence is built from.

AMD's official account publicly congratulated her the same day. Su's own account of why she joined the company, repeated at Invest, is the quote Yahoo Finance built its profile around: "I joined AMD because I wanted to be part of a company that really could be at the bleeding edge of technology." She joined in January 2012, she said, because she wanted to help build technology that mattered well beyond the chip industry — and, looking forward, she added: "Over the horizon, I see AI and superintelligence becoming more and more essential to every aspect of our lives and every aspect of our business."

Two things about the award are worth stating plainly, because the graphics circulating online blur them. First, this is Yahoo Finance's award — one news organisation's editorial choice. It is not a vote of shareholders, not a poll of the industry, and not a government honour. Second, it is not Su's first CEO-of-the-year title. She was named CEO of the Year by TIME in 2024 and by Chief Executive magazine in 2024 as well. Those are separate honours from separate organisations, and this Yahoo Finance award does not replace or repeat them.

The numbers: 158%, $1 trillion, and a record quarter

The case for the award is a scorecard, and the scorecard is unusually clean. Start with the share price. Yahoo Finance put AMD's year-to-date gain at 158% as of 12 November 2026 — its own figure, a point-in-time market reading, not a promise of future returns. Over the same stretch, Nvidia was down 7% year to date and Broadcom was down less than 1%, while the S&P 500 had risen about 11% and the Nasdaq about 10%. AMD did not just beat the market in 2026; it beat the two companies it is most often measured against, by an enormous margin.

The market value tells the same story in bigger numbers. AMD's valuation broke through $1 trillion for the first time in late September 2026, then pulled back to around $906 billion by the time the award was published — still roughly 300 times the roughly $3 billion market value the company carried when Su became CEO in 2014. That is the scale of the turnaround in a single number.

Then the quarter that sealed it. AMD reported third-quarter 2026 results on 3 November 2026: revenue of $13.38 billion ($13,377 million, to be exact), up 45% from $9.25 billion a year earlier and up 16% from the second quarter. It was the largest quarter in the company's history, and it beat the roughly $13.06 billion Wall Street expected — estimates varied slightly by source, around $13.06–13.10 billion, but every version of the consensus was beaten. Adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings were $2.09 a share, up 74% year over year and above forecasts of about $1.94. On a GAAP basis, earnings were $1.46 a share. "We delivered a record quarter with revenue exceeding the high end of our guidance as Data Center segment sales nearly doubled year-over-year," Su said in the results announcement.

The engine was the data center. Data Center segment revenue reached a record $8.5 billion ($8,546 million), up 97% year over year, on record sales of EPYC server processors and the launch of Instinct MI450 AI accelerators — 64% of the company's total revenue, up from 47% a year earlier. Not every part of AMD grew: Client and Gaming revenue fell 8% to $3.72 billion, including a 40% drop in gaming revenue to $773 million, and Embedded revenue rose 29% to $1.1 billion. The award is for the company as a whole, but the growth that earned it came overwhelmingly from one place: selling AI infrastructure.

The deals: World Labs, MI450, Helios — and the 2027 plan

Su's 2026 was not just a good quarter; it was a year of dealmaking, and Yahoo Finance cited the deals explicitly. The biggest was World Labs. On 28 September 2026, AMD announced a definitive agreement to acquire the spatial-intelligence research lab in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $8.2 billion, expected to close by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approval. World Labs was founded in 2024 by Fei-Fei Li — the Stanford researcher often called the "Godmother of AI", the creator of ImageNet, and a former chief scientist at Google Cloud — and builds "world models": AI that can understand, generate and simulate three-dimensional spaces, with products such as Marble and Atlas. Li is set to become AMD's executive vice president and chief scientist — the first chief scientist in AMD's history — reporting directly to Su. It is AMD's second-largest acquisition ever, behind Xilinx, and it is a bet that the chips of the future will be designed around the models they have to run, not the other way round.

The hardware side of the same bet is the Instinct MI450 series and the Helios rack-scale system. The MI450 GPUs began shipping in volume in the third quarter, and Helios racks — MI450 accelerators paired with sixth-generation EPYC ("Venice") server processors — are now running workloads at Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. On the earnings call, Su said fourth-quarter data-center revenue would grow about 50% sequentially, and that it would be the first quarter in which AI chip revenue surpasses server CPU revenue. AMD also guided total fourth-quarter revenue to approximately $17 billion, plus or minus 3% — up about 66% year over year — and Su has laid out an ambition for 2027 revenue growth of more than 80%, with data-center AI revenue doubling. Those are company targets, not results, and they should be read as such — but they are the reason the market is pricing AMD as an AI company rather than a PC chip company.

There was also a reported deal with Meta that could see the Facebook parent own up to 10% of AMD. That figure is reported, not confirmed in an AMD filing, and it is worth treating as a sign of how seriously the hyperscalers are taking AMD as a second AI supplier rather than as a done deal.

The comeback: from near bankruptcy to $1 trillion

None of this was inevitable, and the award's backstory is the turnaround. When Su joined AMD as a senior executive in January 2012, the company was in deep financial trouble — widely described at the time as near bankruptcy, its share price in single digits, its future openly questioned. She became president and CEO in October 2014, and chair in 2022. The rebuild ran through the EPYC server processors that took AMD back into data centers, the Ryzen chips that restored its PC business, and the Xilinx acquisition that broadened what it could sell. During her tenure as CEO, AMD's market value has grown from roughly $3 billion to more than $1 trillion at its peak, and AMD overtook Intel in market value for the first time.

Su's background is the technical kind: a doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT, and engineering and business leadership roles at other semiconductor companies before AMD. The honours have accumulated along the way — IEEE Fellow in 2009, the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal in 2021, TIME's CEO of the Year and Chief Executive magazine's CEO of the Year in 2024 — and on 8 October 2026, a month before the Yahoo Finance award, President Donald Trump presented her with the National Medal of Science at the White House's "Science: A New Golden Age" Summit, for "a lifetime of leadership in semiconductor engineering and high-performance computing through innovations in processor architecture and chiplet-based integration that powered the world's first exascale supercomputer". Notably, Jensen Huang received a National Medal of Science at the same ceremony. The medal claim that circulated with the award graphics — that Trump awarded it to her — is accurate, and it is confirmed by the White House's own release, not just by the aggregators repeating it.

The family connection — and the same-day coincidence

The part of the story that travelled furthest on social media is the family connection, and it is the part most often stated wrong. Lisa Su and Jensen Huang are first cousins once removed, not first cousins. The relationship, as Taiwanese genealogist Jean Wu explained to CNN: Huang's mother and Su's maternal grandfather were siblings. That makes Huang a first cousin of Su's mother — and Su's grandfather is Huang's uncle. One generation apart, hence "once removed". Su acknowledged the relationship in a 2020 interview with the Consumer Technology Association, describing them as "distant relatives", and said competition did not rule out cooperation: AMD's processors could work alongside Nvidia's graphics cards in PCs and data centers, even as the companies competed.

The coincidence is what made the day extraordinary. On the same day Yahoo Finance named Su its CEO of the Year — Thursday 12 November 2026 — Nvidia announced that Huang had resigned as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. The resignation, announced that morning, followed reports of two affairs and an independent-director investigation; Nvidia gave no reason, and Huang made no comment. Colette Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer since 2013, took over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor, inside and outside the company. Nvidia's shares fell 5.5% that day and its market value dropped below $4 trillion. Our full account of the resignation is here: Jensen Huang resigns from Nvidia — what happened, and what comes next, and the aftermath — including Elon Musk's reply that hiring Huang "would be an honor" — is here: Elon Musk says hiring Jensen Huang "would be an honor".

It is worth pausing on how strange the symmetry is. Two people, related by blood, running the two companies that define the AI chip race — and on a single Thursday, one of them is named CEO of the Year while the other walks out of the company he co-founded 33 years earlier. The award had nothing to do with the resignation; Yahoo Finance's decision was made on AMD's year, and the timing was coincidence. But coincidence is exactly what makes a story travel, and this one travelled everywhere.

What the award is not

Three corrections belong in any honest account of this award, because the viral graphics get all three wrong by implication.

It is not a vote. Yahoo Finance's CEO of the Year is an editorial selection. Yahoo Finance's editors chose Su; shareholders did not vote, the industry did not poll, and no regulator ranked anything. That does not make it meaningless — editorial awards reflect a newsroom's judgement, and Yahoo Finance is the largest business news platform in the US — but it is a judgement, not a measurement.

It does not mean AMD has overtaken Nvidia. AMD had a far better year in the stock market, but Nvidia is still far larger by every measure that counts. The comparison table below makes it plain: at the award, AMD's market value was about $906 billion against Nvidia's roughly $4 trillion, and AMD's record quarter of $13.38 billion is about one-seventh of the $96.2 billion Nvidia reported in its latest quarter (its second fiscal quarter of 2027, reported in August 2026; Nvidia's third-quarter results are due 17 November). AMD won the year; it has not won the industry.

It is not her first such title. TIME named Su its CEO of the Year in 2024, and Chief Executive magazine did the same in 2024. The Yahoo Finance award is a third honour of the same kind from a third organisation, for a different year and a different set of reasons — not a first, and not a repeat of either.

2026 scorecard	AMD (Lisa Su)	Nvidia (Jensen Huang, to 12 Nov)
Share price, year-to-date at 12 Nov 2026	+158%	-7%
Market value at the award	~$906 billion (peaked above $1 trillion in late September 2026)	~$4 trillion (closed at $4.19 trillion on 11 Nov; dipped below $4 trillion during the 12 Nov sell-off)
Latest reported quarterly revenue	$13.38 billion (Q3 2026, reported 3 Nov 2026)	$96.2 billion (Q2 FY2027, reported 26 Aug 2026; Q3 FY2027 due 17 Nov)
Data-center revenue, latest quarter	$8.5 billion, +97% year over year	$89.0 billion, +117% year over year
12 November 2026	Named Yahoo Finance's 2026 CEO of the Year	Huang resigned as president, CEO and board member; Colette Kress named interim CEO

The table and the chart say the same thing from opposite directions. AMD's year was extraordinary — a 158% share gain, a trillion-dollar peak, a record quarter — and Nvidia's year was difficult even before its chief executive resigned. But the gap between the two companies is still measured in trillions of dollars and tens of billions of quarterly revenue. Su's award recognises the best year in the industry, not the biggest company in it.

What happens next

Three things decide whether 2026 was a peak or a platform. First, the fourth quarter: AMD guided revenue to approximately $17 billion, with data-center revenue up about 50% quarter over quarter — the number that would confirm the MI450 ramp and the Helios rollout are real and repeatable, rather than a single strong quarter. Second, the World Labs deal, expected to close by the end of 2026: whether Fei-Fei Li's team stays and whether "world models" actually change what AMD's chips are designed to do, or whether an $8.2 billion acqui-hire quietly fades into the roadmap. Third, the $1 trillion question: AMD's valuation peaked above $1 trillion in late September and fell back to about $906 billion by the award — whether it returns there depends on the fourth-quarter numbers and on the 2027 plan, revenue growth of more than 80% with data-center AI revenue doubling.

And then there is the other side of 12 November. Nvidia reports third-quarter results on Tuesday 17 November 2026, its first earnings under interim CEO Colette Kress, with guided revenue of about $108 billion. Whatever that report shows will set the terms of the next chapter of this race — and it will arrive less than a week after the week in which one cousin was crowned and the other resigned.

Verdict

The award is real, the year behind it is real, and the coincidence that made it famous is real too. Lisa Su took a company that was near bankruptcy in 2012 and turned it into a trillion-dollar AI supplier; in 2026 she added a record quarter, an $8.2 billion acquisition, a new GPU and rack system shipping to every major AI customer, a National Medal of Science, and a 158% share gain. Yahoo Finance's editors noticed, and they were right to. But the award is a judgement on a year, not a verdict on an industry. AMD is still the challenger, Nvidia is still far larger, and the next test — the fourth quarter, the World Labs close, and Nvidia's first earnings without its founder — is already only days away. Watch those numbers, not the trophy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Lisa Su?

Dr Lisa Su is the chair and chief executive of AMD, a role she has held since October 2014 after joining the company as a senior executive in January 2012; she became chair in 2022. She holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT. She led AMD's turnaround from near bankruptcy through the EPYC server processors, the Ryzen PC chips and the Xilinx acquisition, and she was named CEO of the Year by TIME and by Chief Executive magazine in 2024 before Yahoo Finance's 2026 award.

What is Yahoo Finance's CEO of the Year?

It is Yahoo Finance's annual editorial award: the publication's editors pick the chief executive they judge to have had the defining year in business. For 2026 they chose Lisa Su, and the award was announced by executive editor Brian Sozzi at the Yahoo Finance Invest 2026 event on 12 November 2026. It is an editorial selection, not a shareholder vote, an industry poll or a government ranking.

Why did Lisa Su win?

Yahoo Finance cited three things: AMD's shares up 158% year to date, a record third quarter ($13.38 billion in revenue, up 45%, beating expectations, with data-center revenue up 97% to $8.5 billion), and the dealmaking — above all the $8.2 billion agreement to acquire World Labs and the launch of the MI450 GPU and Helios rack-scale system. Her National Medal of Science, presented by President Trump on 8 October 2026, was also noted.

Are Lisa Su and Jensen Huang really cousins?

Yes, but not first cousins: they are first cousins once removed. Huang's mother and Su's maternal grandfather were siblings, which makes Huang a first cousin of Su's mother and puts the two a generation apart. Su has described them as "distant relatives". The viral graphics that call them simply "cousins" are imprecise, though not wrong in the loose sense of the word.

Did AMD overtake Nvidia?

No. AMD had a far better year in the stock market — up 158% against Nvidia's 7% fall — but Nvidia is still far larger: about $4 trillion in market value against AMD's roughly $906 billion at the award, and $96.2 billion in its latest reported quarterly revenue against AMD's $13.38 billion. AMD won 2026; it has not won the industry.

What did AMD report in Q3 2026?

AMD reported results on 3 November 2026: record revenue of $13.38 billion, up 45% year over year and above the roughly $13.06 billion Wall Street expected. Data Center revenue was a record $8.5 billion, up 97%. Adjusted earnings were $2.09 a share, up 74% and above forecasts of about $1.94. For the fourth quarter, AMD guided revenue to approximately $17 billion, with data-center revenue up about 50% quarter over quarter.

Sources

• Clash Report — "Lisa Su Receives Yahoo Finance's CEO of the Year Award for 2026" (12 November 2026): https://clashreport.com/world/articles/yahoo-finance-names-amd-s-lisa-su-its-ceo-of-the-year-for-2026-mbnhn0gvfrt
• BigGo Finance — "Lisa Su Named CEO of the Year as AMD Shares Surge 158% This Year, Market Cap Briefly Tops $1 Trillion" (13 November 2026): https://finance.biggo.com/news/24175845-9a07-4c44-8086-517e3cdb9453
• PCGeek — "AMD's Lisa Su Wins CEO of the Year the Same Day Her Cousin Jensen Huang Resigns" (13 November 2026): https://pcgeek.info/amds-lisa-su-wins-ceo-of-the-year-the-same-day-her-cousin-jensen-huang-resigns/
• MarketSpeaker — "AMD's Lisa Su Named Yahoo Finance's CEO of the Year" (12 November 2026): https://marketspeaker.com/amd-lisa-su-yahoo-ceo-year-jensen-huang-cousins/
• Cryptopolitan — "AMD's Lisa Su named CEO of the Year after 158% stock surge leaves Nvidia behind" (13 November 2026): https://www.cryptopolitan.com/amds-lisa-su-named-ceo-of-the-year/
• Yahoo Finance — "Lisa Su: Demand exceeds supply, and the market is being shortsighted" (Invest 2026 interview, 12 November 2026): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhkdRBy3W6w
• AMD Newsroom — "AMD Reports Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results" (3 November 2026): https://newsroom.amd.com/news/amd-reports-third-quarter-2026-earnings/
• AMD Newsroom — "AMD to Acquire World Labs" (28 September 2026): https://newsroom.amd.com/news/amd-acquire-world-labs/
• The White House — "President Trump Presents National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation" (8 October 2026): https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/10/president-trump-presents-national-medals-of-science-and-national-medals-of-technology-and-innovation/
• Futurum Group — "AMD Acquires World Labs to Build Silicon Around World Models" (30 September 2026): https://futurumgroup.com/insights/amd-acquires-world-labs-for-82-billion-to-design-silicon-around-world-models/
• BitcoinVersus.Tech — "Lisa Su Wins Yahoo Finance CEO of the Year 2026" (12 November 2026): https://bitcoinversus.tech/2026/11/12/lisa-su-yahoo-finance-ceo-of-the-year-2026-amd-ai-revenue-growth/
• Lisa Su — biography and honours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Su
• Yahoo Finance's award announcement ("Why AMD CEO Lisa Su is Yahoo Finance's 'CEO of the Year'", Brian Sozzi, 12 November 2026) is cited in-text; its direct finance.yahoo.com article URL could not be established from this machine — the article is confirmed by the Yahoo Finance Invest 2026 interview above and by the Clash Report, MarketSpeaker, PCGeek and Cryptopolitan coverage — so no direct link is given rather than a guessed one.

Related reading: Jensen Huang resigns from Nvidia · Elon Musk says hiring Jensen Huang "would be an honor" · Claude Fable 5.2: Anthropic's new model