Supermicro Chairman and CEO Charles Liang triumphantly introduced to buyers in early December 2024 {that a} particular investigation spurred by the abrupt resignation of audit agency Ernst & Younger had discovered no proof of fraud or misconduct.
The rub? The investigation resulted in a sequence of suggestions that Supermicro agreed to hold out, together with that the IT options producer would appoint a chief accounting officer and “immediately” begin a seek for a brand new chief monetary officer to switch David Weigand, who took the CFO position in February 2021. No wrongdoing was pinned on Weigand, however the committee’s findings acknowledged that there have been “lapses” within the rehiring of 9 individuals who had beforehand resigned in 2018 following a completely completely different 2017 audit-related investigation. On condition that Weigand, as CFO and chief compliance officer, “had primary responsibility for the process of hiring these employees, he had primary responsibility for processes lapses,” the investigation committee acknowledged. That included Supermicro coming into right into a consulting association with its former CFO—who had additionally resigned in relation to the 2017 investigation—after which not informing EY or the board’s audit committee.
The prolonged hunt for a brand new CFO underscores the ultra-competitive state of the marketplace for hiring a strategic finance chief who brings intensive audit or accounting experience in addition to credibility with Wall Avenue. Given Supermicro’s high-profile position within the AI buildout frenzy, the CFO additionally must even have strategic relationships with analysts, funding banks, and market contributors. To not point out, Supermicro has contended with a slew of accounting-related allegations and smoke which have probably made it all of the tougher to seek out somebody to take the job, regardless of the corporate’s sturdy affiliation with high-flyer Nvidia.
“No one wants this job—this is like touching lightning,” mentioned Shawn Cole, president and founding associate of govt search agency Cowen Companions. If one thing goes fallacious, it might be “poison” to somebody’s profession, he added.
The corporate’s “ambiguity” on the matter, and the dearth of a public replace by way of investor relations and company communications can be itself a crimson flag, Cole added. It may recommend potential discord between the CEO and the board at a time when there’s a shrinking expertise pool of CFOs, which suggests “top talent gets their pick,” Cole mentioned, and never the opposite means round.
“The price of a qualified CFO in that industry is extremely expensive, and they might not be in the best position to attract top talent,” he added. “If they’ve been trying to initiate a CFO search, they’re probably experiencing some significant frustration in doing so.”
In an announcement, Supermicro didn’t particularly tackle the CFO search.
Supermicro’s relationship with Nvidia is without doubt one of the key drivers to its place within the AI ecosystem buildout. Based in San Jose in 1993, Supermicro describes itself as a “Total IT Solutions” producer that designs and builds servers, storage techniques and information heart infrastructure that powers AI and are jam-packed with Nvidia’s extremely coveted GPUs. One in every of their chief choices is named a Knowledge Middle Constructing Block Resolution, which is mainly a ready-to-roll information heart that doesn’t want its elements pieced collectively like a dresser from Ikea. Supermicro additionally holds a proprietary liquid-cooling expertise that lowers temperatures because the chips powering the AI transition run hotter than ever. The Fortune 500 firm aiming for internet gross sales of no less than $40 billion this 12 months, based on its most up-to-date earnings name, additionally has relationships with AMD, Broadcom, Intel, Samsung and Micron, per its annual report.
The corporate received accolades for teaming up with Elon Musk to construct xAI’s 750,000 sq. foot Colossus cluster in simply 122 days. And Liang counts Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as a good friend. Supermicro works carefully with Nvidia’s engineers to make sure its server techniques are aligned with new GPUs in what Supermicro calls “time-to-market” management. Throughout its first quarter of 2026 name with analysts, Liang flagged that considered one of its Nvidia Blackwell product strains had generated $13 billion in orders, together with the most important deal within the firm’s 32-year historical past.
Nonetheless, Supermicro has needed to battle again from a earlier buying and selling suspension from the Nasdaq inventory trade in 2018 and a panel determination to delist the inventory. It then confronted the specter of one other delisting following EY’s shock resignation. Again in 2020, Supermicro paid a $17.5 million penalty and its former CFO Howard Hideshima paid a $350,000 effective and agreed to a cease-and-desist order from committing or inflicting additional violations. Liang was not charged with misconduct however was required to reimburse the corporate $2.1 million in inventory earnings associated to a clawback related to alleged accounting errors.
4 years later, Supermicro was the topic of a short-seller report from famed agency Hindenburg Analysis across the similar time EY stop. Supermicro was then delayed in submitting annual and quarterly stories and Nasdaq once more threatened it with delisting.
Supermicro employed new accounting agency BDO USA and has since made a sequence of adjustments to shore up its governance and to regain compliance with Nasdaq itemizing requirements. In March 2025, the corporate named a common counsel, Yitai Hu, who was beforehand its senior vice chairman of company improvement. The board additionally appointed Scott Angel as an impartial director, a veteran auditor who spent 25 years as a associate in Silicon Valley with Deloitte. But, the board in 2025 appointed a lead impartial director to function a counterbalance to Liang within the chairman and CEO position, an appointment that ended final month.
Nonetheless, the CFO position stays unchanged.
A 2025 report from search agency Russell Reynolds that tracked CFO turnover discovered that skilled appointments hit a seven-year excessive final 12 months, illustrating the choice for expertise over somebody who would take the position as a step-up, first-time candidate. Among the many S&P 500, which has intensive crossover with the Fortune 500, skilled hires jumped from 36% to 43%, year-over-year. Solely 16% of CFOs surveyed mentioned their firms had a significant succession plan in place for his or her eventual replacements, a degree that always widens the hole between transitioning from a former to a brand new CFO.
An organization like Supermicro is probably going looking for somebody with a “pretty special mix” of a powerful company governance observe report and finance gravitas that may give the market reassurance about monetary rigor on the firm, mentioned Ross Woledge, head of the CFO observe at search agency Odgers. So the corporate is probably going on the lookout for a CFO who can supply a “safe pair of hands” and likewise somebody who might help place the corporate for innovation and R&D funding. It may be “tough” to nail each facets, he added.
“It’s a really fast-moving tech company that’s expanding at a pretty rapid clip,” mentioned Woledge. “The CFO needs to be a really great partner to the CEO to drive that—and that’s a different type of skill set.”
Sadly, most CFOs typically lean someway, added Woledge, which has probably made the search harder. Most boards, in Woledge’s expertise, choose to attend it out and never bend on the highest priorities they’re in search of within the subsequent CFO. Whereas some searches prolong from six to 12 months, some run even longer as boards wait to seek out the correct candidate, he added, significantly if a board is holding out for expertise. Some boards additionally maintain a number of rounds of interviews over months whereas vetting a candidate that may additional prolong the method. It’s typically simpler to get a CFO with a powerful accounting or audit background relatively than a CFO with sturdy strategic relationships, capital markets experience, and innovation expertise.
“The risks are too high when you get a CFO search wrong,” mentioned Woledge. “And then factor in the situation around this and it’s additionally important that they get this one right.”
