Supermicro Chairman and CEO Charles Liang triumphantly announced to investors in early December 2024 that a special investigation spurred by the abrupt resignation of audit firm Ernst & Young had found no evidence of fraud or misconduct.
The rub? The investigation resulted in a series of recommendations that Supermicro agreed to carry out, including that the IT solutions manufacturer would appoint a chief accounting officer and “immediately” start a search for a new chief financial officer to replace David Weigand, who took the CFO role in February 2021. No wrongdoing was pinned on Weigand, but the committee’s findings stated that there were “lapses” in the rehiring of nine people who had previously resigned in 2018 following an entirely different 2017 audit-related investigation. Given 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 stated. That included Supermicro entering into a consulting arrangement with its former CFO—who had also resigned in relation to the 2017 investigation—and then not informing EY or the board’s audit committee.
Following the disclosure, Supermicro moved quickly to name Kenneth Cheung as the CAO and principal accounting officer. But more than 14 months and four straight quarters later, Weigand remains in the CFO seat and there hasn’t been an update to investors on the search in public filings in the year since. Weigand spoke with analysts this month when the company announced its second quarter 2026 earnings results, and gave his name for regulatory sign-off purposes.
The extended hunt for a new CFO underscores the ultra-competitive state of the market for hiring a strategic finance leader who brings extensive audit or accounting expertise as well as credibility with Wall Street. Given Supermicro’s high-profile role in the AI buildout frenzy, the CFO also needs to also have strategic relationships with analysts, investment banks, and market participants. Not to mention, Supermicro has contended with a slew of accounting-related allegations and smoke that have likely made it all the more challenging to find someone to take the job, despite the company’s strong affiliation with high-flyer Nvidia.
“No one wants this job—this is like touching lightning,” said Shawn Cole, president and founding partner of executive search firm Cowen Partners. If something goes wrong, it could be “poison” to someone’s career, he added.
The company’s “ambiguity” on the matter, and the lack of a public update through investor relations and corporate communications is also itself a red flag, Cole added. It could suggest potential discord between the CEO and the board at a time when there’s a shrinking talent pool of CFOs, which means “top talent gets their pick,” Cole said, and not the other way around.
“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 a statement, Supermicro did not specifically address the CFO search.
“Supermicro has undertaken a double-digit expansion of its staff globally, including the search for key Senior Executives to help the company accelerate its historic growth in the rapidly evolving AI market,” the company stated in an email response to questions.
Supermicro’s relationship with Nvidia is one of the key drivers to its place in the AI ecosystem buildout. Founded in San Jose in 1993, Supermicro describes itself as a “Total IT Solutions” manufacturer that designs and builds servers, storage systems and data center infrastructure that powers AI and are jam-packed with Nvidia’s highly coveted GPUs. One of their chief offerings is called a Data Center Building Block Solution, which is basically a ready-to-roll data center that doesn’t need its components pieced together like a dresser from Ikea. Supermicro also holds a proprietary liquid-cooling technology that lowers temperatures as the chips powering the AI transition run hotter than ever. The Fortune 500 company aiming for net sales of at least $40 billion this year, according to its most recent earnings call, also has relationships with AMD, Broadcom, Intel, Samsung and Micron, per its annual report.
The company won accolades for teaming up with Elon Musk to build xAI’s 750,000 square foot Colossus cluster in just 122 days. And Liang counts Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as a friend. Supermicro works closely with Nvidia’s engineers to ensure its server systems are aligned with new GPUs in what Supermicro calls “time-to-market” leadership. During its first quarter of 2026 call with analysts, Liang flagged that one of its Nvidia Blackwell product lines had generated $13 billion in orders, including the largest deal in the company’s 32-year history.
Still, Supermicro has had to battle back from a previous trading suspension from the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2018 and a panel decision to delist the stock. It then faced the threat of another delisting following EY’s surprise resignation. Back in 2020, Supermicro paid a $17.5 million penalty and its former CFO Howard Hideshima paid a $350,000 fine and agreed to a cease-and-desist order from committing or causing further violations. Liang was not charged with misconduct but was required to reimburse the company $2.1 million in stock profits related to a clawback associated with alleged accounting errors.
Four years later, Supermicro was the subject of a short-seller report from famed firm Hindenburg Research around the same time EY quit. Supermicro was then delayed in filing annual and quarterly reports and Nasdaq again threatened it with delisting.
Supermicro hired new accounting firm BDO USA and has since made a series of changes to shore up its governance and to regain compliance with Nasdaq listing standards. In March 2025, the company named a general counsel, Yitai Hu, who was previously its senior vice president of corporate development. The board also appointed Scott Angel as an independent director, a veteran auditor who spent 25 years as a partner in Silicon Valley with Deloitte. Yet, the board in 2025 appointed a lead independent director to serve as a counterbalance to Liang in the chairman and CEO role, an appointment that ended last month.
Still, the CFO role remains unchanged.
A 2025 report from search firm Russell Reynolds that tracked CFO turnover found that experienced appointments hit a seven-year high last year, illustrating the preference for experience over someone who would take the role as a step-up, first-time candidate. Among the S&P 500, which has extensive crossover with the Fortune 500, experienced hires jumped from 36% to 43%, year-over-year. Only 16% of CFOs surveyed said their companies had a meaningful succession plan in place for their eventual replacements, a point that often widens the gap between transitioning from a former to a new CFO.
A company like Supermicro is likely searching for someone with a “pretty special mix” of a strong corporate governance track record and finance gravitas that can give the market reassurance about financial rigor at the company, said Ross Woledge, head of the CFO practice at search firm Odgers. So the company is likely looking for a CFO who can offer a “safe pair of hands” and also someone who can help position the company for innovation and R&D investment. It can be “tough” to nail both aspects, he added.
“It’s a really fast-moving tech company that’s expanding at a pretty rapid clip,” said 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.”
Unfortunately, most CFOs often lean one way or the other, added Woledge, which has likely made the search more difficult. Most boards, in Woledge’s experience, prefer to wait it out and not bend on the top priorities they’re seeking in the next CFO. While some searches extend from six to 12 months, some run even longer as boards wait to find the right candidate, he added, particularly if a board is holding out for experience. Some boards also hold multiple rounds of interviews over months while vetting a candidate that can further extend the process. It’s often easier to get a CFO with a strong accounting or audit background rather than a CFO with strong strategic relationships, capital markets expertise, and innovation experience.
“The risks are too high when you get a CFO search wrong,” said Woledge. “And then factor in the situation around this and it’s additionally important that they get this one right.”
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