← Redefiners
Redefiners
The Only Certainty Is Change: Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman on AI, Innovation & Market Evolution
00:39:16
When it comes to global financial markets, the only certainty is the likelihood of uncertainty and change. The world is in a period of transformation on multiple levels fueled by AI and technology innovation, shifting economic policies, and infrast...
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- [00:00]
Clark Murphy
Call them change makers, call them rule breakers.
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Adina Friedman
We call them redefiners.
- [00:12]
Clark Murphy
Hello everybody. Welcome back to Redefiners. It's Clark Murphy with Russell Reynolds Associates. We've got a special jolt of caffeine today because we're recording live off the floor of the NASDAQ Exchange. If you want some energy, you gotta come here. It's amazing. For those who aren't familiar, the exchange was the first electronic Exchange Founded in 1971 and is home to the listings of some of those high energy companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta. So you've got the picture. But of course, the exchange is just one of their businesses and we're going to talk about that a little bit later on before we get started. Just a reminder to our listeners, if you are watching this on YouTube, you can go down and hit the subscribe subscribe button. And for those of you who are listening, we would love for you to give us some feedback on any questions you have, what you think of it. And keep listening wherever you get your podcasts. So a lot of the work we do at Russell Reynolds Associates with CEOs and board members is talking about the themes today of innovation, pace, of change, culture, talent, making sure you're relevant, but keeping the roots of a great culture. We're joined today with a CEO who is doing that at pace and scale as we speak. And we're joined today by Adina Friedman, who's the chair and CEO of Nasdaq, earlier served as president, also coo. She left briefly at one point to be the chief financial officer of the Carlyle Group. In fact, took them public as the cfo. And so she's seen the listings from both sides of the scoreboard. Earlier she was at Nasdaq running their data products business and she has done a variety of things, starting by joining the company as an intern out of business school. Adina, welcome to Redefiners. Thanks for joining us.
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Adina Friedman
It's great to be here. Clark. Thank you so much. This is fantastic.
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Clark Murphy
Well, it's good to be in the same place at the same time.
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Adina Friedman
Agreed.
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Clark Murphy
I have to laugh. You and I may be some of the rare people that have spent 30 years on and off with the same company.
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Adina Friedman
Agreed. Agreed.
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Clark Murphy
So maybe we start there having started as an intern and become CEO. You started as an intern, became CEO. Tell us about the journey and maybe some of the milestones that help you be the leader you are today.
- [02:21]
Adina Friedman
It is a fun story because I got so lucky. I mean, how often do you get to go and join A company right out of college or right out of university and then suddenly end up spending your whole career here. My, my. By the way, my father did that. So he also joined T Price for out of business school and spent his entire career there. So I did see that. I think that probably did influence me a little bit.
- [02:43]
Clark Murphy
There you go.
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Adina Friedman
But I started as an intern because I wanted to be in the financial industry, but I wanted to be a product manager. When I was in business school. I loved product management, but I also liked finance. And I had this rare opportunity to come and intern at Nasdaq to write product plans for their trading products. And NASDAQ was at an interesting time because they were owned by the national association of securities Dealers, so they are owned by a membership, not for profit organization, but they were a for profit business inside that shop. So they were starting to understand, like they were trying to figure out, how do we build commercial muscles around these trading products or data products or things that they owned and start to think differently about being a product company. And so I got to come in and they said, oh, you went to business school. You know how to write product plans? And I was like, oh, sure, I had no idea. So but I got in there, I learned it quickly. I helped them write some product plans, and then they hired me on permanently. And ultimately I became a product manager in the trade trading division. And then they reorganized NASDAQ into three divisions. They peeled the data business out of the trading business. And they took a big risk on me when I was about 30, 31 years old. And they made me the head of the data business on the back of being that product manager. That was one of a great, you know, one defining moment. I think that then we had a new CEO come in in 2003, and he was came from the technology industry. He was not coming from the banking side, he was coming from the software side. And it was fantastic because he really changed the way that we thought about our business, but it was all about product. So I think that definitely played to my strengths. He then made me head of strategy and head of data and then ultimately cfo. I then went to Carlisle, came back as president, and then became CEO eight years ago. So it's been a wonderful journey here. I've been really, really fortunate.
- [04:37]
Clark Murphy
So Nasdaq, particularly for those overseas that don't know the company as well, has redefined itself under that CEO and under you. And it's really a technology company with multiple divisions. Can you just give an overview of the company and the divisions?
- [04:51]
Adina Friedman
So we are a technology provider to the entire financial industry. We start with our own markets, and our own markets are incredible and we have incredible technology that underpin our markets. But we made a decision a long time ago to also want to provide that technology to other markets. So we now provide core critical infrastructure technology to 130 marketplaces around the world. So we are really, we underpin a lot of markets in terms of trading, clearing, settlement technology. We also provide a whole suite, a very complete suite of trade operations, as well as risk management and anti financial crime technology to banks and brokers all over the world. We have 3,800 customers who leverage our technology for that purpose. And then we also provide amazing data analytics that help corporates and investors find each other more successfully and build investment strategies around our index business in ways that really help redefine the investor experience. So we have data analytics, we have software, and then we have our core markets. And that's how we've kind of organized us. We are ultimately though, the foundation of us as a market. You know, we have these great corporate relationships, investor relationships, broker dealer relationships. And we really center around three themes. Liquidity, how do we drive more liquidity across markets in the world and into our markets? How do we drive more transparency to transparency. How do we make the entire financial system more transparent? And then third, of course is integrity. How do we drive integrity across the financial system? And all three of those key themes are really the underpinning of us as a market.
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Clark Murphy
So not many people are head of strategy and become the chief executive where the company is today. Is this the strategy that you helped develop or has it evolved since you would had a strategy?
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Adina Friedman
I would say that this strategy has been. There have been pieces of the strategy that developed when I was head of strategy, bringing it all together into this comprehensive thematic way of thinking about our business and really driving at scale us as a technology provider to the entire industry has been much more the journey as a CEO.
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Clark Murphy
Got it.
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Adina Friedman
But we certainly there were definitely pieces of this strategy that were already coming up through the organization. As head of strategy.
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Clark Murphy
As you reflect on your own career, we ask everybody, was there a redefining or defining moment for you?
- [07:12]
Adina Friedman
There actually was a defining moment for me. And it's not going to be. I had a couple of key moments in my career, like becoming the head of data, becoming the head of strategy and then joining Carlyle. I would say those three things and of course becoming CEO. But. But there was a project that I want to talk about because there was this project that Allowed me to exercise a lot of muscles that allowed me to develop myself as a leader, accomplish something really important for the company and build trust. With the CEO, Bob Breifeld. So he was new as CEO, and so this was in 2003, he'd come into NASDAQ, he was making a lot of change inside the company.
- [07:51]
Clark Murphy
And.
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Adina Friedman
And then we had kind of this external force that came in and said that really made it so that we had to rethink how we closed the market every day. So up until this moment, we closed the market every day by just taking the last trade that was reported to the market and then we would just shut the system and say, we're done. And the problem with that is it really was a very gamable way to close the market. And as indexers were coming up and becoming more prevalent, and mutual funds at that time were so big, they were using that closing price as the price that determine the value of their fund or the value of the index. And that was making it so that trillions and trillions of dollars were dependent on that price to be the right price, like to really be a good reflection of the market. And the result of that was we just weren't keeping up with the times. And so we said, okay, it's time for us to build an auction to, to close the market. But we'd never built an auction before at nasdaq, ever. And today, of course, auctions are a huge part of markets, but at the time we had none. And I raised my hand and I said, bob, I really want to work on this project. I want to lead this project. And I was the head of data, not the head of trading. But I really wanted it.
- [08:57]
Clark Murphy
Some skepticism in that moment, perhaps.
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Adina Friedman
Well, it was more like. Well, and I said, look, this is actually a huge transparency opportunity. We're going to build data. It's going to be a critical component of this. Please, can I take this project? And he gave it to me. And there was a big time commitment, meaning we had to get it done within a certain period of time. Because every year in June, there's the largest event of closing event of the year, which is the Russell rebalance. And at that time it was a huge event. And a couple years earlier, we'd actually had a chance. We had had a problem on that day. And so we knew that we had to execute this thing flawlessly and we needed to get it live and we needed to get it proven before that day occurred. So. So it was an opportunity for me to build a team to take an idea and turn it into reality to figure out how to code it, to engage the industry, the buy side and the sell side, to figure out how does this work for everyone, to have the best talent inside of nasdaq. Come with me to help define what this looks like. I had incredible people on the team working with us, and then we had to build it and deploy it and deploy it at scale. So flash forward to the Russell rebalance. The big day. And. And I remember I was in our Market Watch division, which is where we kind of watch everything happen as we get to the close. And. And. And we actually had, I believe, 500 million shares trade in the close that day.
- [10:21]
Clark Murphy
Whoa.
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Adina Friedman
In the closing auction. And it happened in two seconds. Right. And it was both pins and needles, excitement, you know, anxiety, and it was just wonderful. And it works so well. And I think that that whole project got me much closer to Bob, got me. Got much closer to the entire technology division. Really helped me develop my skills as a leader and an influencer and engage the industry. And so it, at that moment, Bob then made me the head of strategy. Right after that, you go, yeah. That was my defining moment.
- [10:51]
Clark Murphy
So safe to say you were out of your comfort zone.
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Adina Friedman
Very much so.
- [10:54]
Clark Murphy
A lot of stakeholders.
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Adina Friedman
Yes.
- [10:56]
Clark Murphy
For better or worse, a lot of visibility.
- [10:58]
Adina Friedman
A lot of visibility and pressure and.
- [11:00]
Clark Murphy
A fair bit of both institutional and career risk.
- [11:02]
Adina Friedman
Yeah. Because if it did not go well, that would have been good. In Bob's first year, it was a big. I had to succeed.
- [11:09]
Clark Murphy
I often say to people, take the most difficult project. No one remembers the easy ones.
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Adina Friedman
Exactly. That's exactly right. And I did raise my hand and ask for it, too. I didn't wait for him to choose. I think that was important, too.
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Clark Murphy
Another thing that people may not realize is NASDAQ is a serial acquirer of business. You do a lot of deals here. You've done a lot of deals. Doing a deal at Carlyle, doing a deal at nasdaq. Very different. How might you juxtapose doing deals in different environments?
- [11:40]
Adina Friedman
Well, it's interesting because they have different purposes. So in nasdaq, if we're choosing to bring a company to become part of nasdaq, it's a forever decision. And so it's a very different framework to use to determine whether that company is the right fit for you. Because, number one, you start with the strategy first. You should have a strategy as a company, and then you start to say, okay, to me, M and A should be a means to an end, not an end itself. Right. So you're saying, here's my strategy, and you take your shareholders on the journey to say, here's how we want to define our future. Here's how this company fits into that future, how they can add to your capabilities, add to your distribution, going to put you into a new market, whatever it is that's really just defined within the strategy. Then you say, okay, well, how financially does this fit into the picture of NASDAQ as well? You know, does one plus one equal more than two? And that's super important. But it's both in the near term and the long term, because in the near term, the shareholders are expecting a return that's within the framework of their own return environment. But then also, you have to know 10 years, 20 years later, that you've got this business that's really defining the future of the company. So that's the way we view M and A within being an operating company, buying another operating company inside of a private equity firm. They have a very defined process. And for them, as soon as they're thinking about buying a company, it's not a strategic decision necessarily, it's a financial decision. They also have a very defined exit time frame. So usually they try to say, well, what can we do with this company over five years? And then the most important, important question is, how do we exit? Right, right. So they are not a forever owner. Yes. They're a redefining owner. Right, right. They're taking this company, redefining it, turning it into something better than it was, and then making sure that they know how to land it somewhere else, either in the public markets or with another buyer. That's a very different investment thesis. But when I was at Carlyle and I watched them, and I actually had to evaluate all the internal rates of return on every single investment at Carlyle, it really was great for me to see the discipline that they took on that financial analysis and what they used as their framework. So I was able to bring a lot of that thinking back to nasdaq, but with a different context.
- [13:54]
Clark Murphy
It was on the floor. The company just went public. Sailpoint. Pretty exciting to see.
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Adina Friedman
Excellent.
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Clark Murphy
The amount of private capital being put to work is tremendous. Public listings have always been the joy of the destination. How do you look at companies wanting to remain private and those that need to go public for a variety of.
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Adina Friedman
Reasons or want to go public or.
- [14:17]
Clark Murphy
Want to go public?
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Adina Friedman
Okay, so I actually, first I would just frame it out. So there was a study that was done, and in 2023, there was $112 trillion in the public markets and $15 trillion in the private markets. So the public markets still are an enormous, enormous driver of wealth creation, economic growth and frankly just drivers of the economy. But the private markets are growing a lot faster. So I think there was like 3% growth in the public capital, 15% growth in the private capital. So it's a different trajectory. So I do think it's important to point that out. But the fact of the matter is companies have a lot more choice today and they can stay private longer. The private equity industry and the VC industry are changing their fund structures to make it so that they can keep private companies like Right.
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Clark Murphy
Long term platforms, right?
- [15:08]
Adina Friedman
Yes. Permanent capital vehicles, other things. And so it's going to be increasingly important that we demonstrate why being a public company is actually the best next step for a company. And I look at it not as a destination, but as a next step. And I think I've said this to you before, Clark. I know I said it when I was at Carlyle. You know, going from being a private company to a public company is like going from driving on a country road where you're winding your way through, you know where your destination is, but you don't quite know how you're going to get there. And you might take a turn or two along the way way, but you can also pick your speed. You don't really have. You know, there's a lot of different elements to driving on a country road. And then being public is like getting onto that four lane highway and you have a lot more rules, you're going a lot faster. You have to make sure you're looking left and right. You have to know you probably have a better sense of what that next turn is going to be. So I think that that's just a different way of running your company. But being a public company can make you go faster. It gives your clients a sense of permanence in terms of who you are as a company. Are you going to be there to serve me over the next 10 years? Not just the next five? When we've bought companies out of private equity and brought them into nasdaq, the clients are so happy because they know they have a forever owner and we're there to drive the business over the long term. We can make 10 year decisions for that business and it's a very different investment thesis for the clients. So there's a lot of benefit to being in a public company, but there's also a lot of obligation and we have to look at that and say is the obligation getting kind of out of whack with the benefits. And that's where we have to engage regulators, legislators and make sure they understand you can't just pile a bunch of obligations on just by the fact they're public companies. You have to focus those obligations on what shareholders really need to know in order to make an informed decision. And we're working on that right now. I think there's an opportunity to recalibrate that right now.
- [17:02]
Clark Murphy
We'll be right back with Adina Friedman. But first let's hear from Tristan Jervis, a leadership advisor specializing in AI transformation. Tristan will discuss the four critical steps CEOs can take to build AI powered.
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Tristan Jervis
Organizations the common misconception many leaders harbor is that AI transformation is only a tech challenge. It's not. At its core, it's a leadership challenge, one that demands new capabilities, mindsets and approaches. Our research shows that while 54% of leaders rate technological change as a top five threat to organizational health, only 45% feel confident in their organization's ability to effectively transform. To successfully navigate this transformation, CEOs need to take four critical 1 assess the AI readiness of your leadership team, 2 unlock your existing leader's AI potential, 3 find AI transformation ready leaders and 4 plan for an AI powered future. The stakes couldn't be higher. Organizations that successfully navigate this transformation will unlock efficiencies, innovation and competitive advantage. Those that falter risk irrelevance. To learn more about how you can lead effective AI transformation and the key actions to take, find our full report in the Show Notes or by visiting.
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Clark Murphy
Rra.Com and now back to our conversation with Adena. Recalibrate is a great word. 2025. It's a year of change all over the world and the pace, whether it's technology, geopolitics, balance sheets, etc. Earlier this month, McKinsey said this is probably the greatest moment of uncertainty for investors. Council on Foreign Relations says geopolitical conflict, Likelihood high, impact high. And we look at the J.P. morgan Healthcare Conference. They talked about investing with uncertainty, resilience and outlook and perseverance. Change, change, change, change. You also talked about 2025 as a moment of change. You're in the markets, business, you live the markets. How do you look at change and what's going on in the short to medium term future?
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Adina Friedman
We're at this inflection point in the economy, in the world, but in technology and also in the world, meaning, you know, the broader climate and other things that are happening, the externalities that we're Facing So, so we've done some work with some firms that have estimated that there's probably a $80 trillion investment that needs to be made in order to really bring every society and every economy forward to face the realities of the world that we're living in today. So that can be climate change and an energy transition and unleashing the power of technology and AI, the redefining what will AI really mean for every business, for every part of society. But there's an enormous amount of opportunity to unleash if we can find the capital to deploy. And that's of course what capital markets do. And it's also what the broader banking system and VC investors investment, that's what we're here to do, is to really put capital to work in these defining moments to catalyze growth or to catalyze change. And at the same time we have to recognize the fact that we have another moment which is we have been putting more and more obligations on those companies and banks and brokers that are the ones that are going to be the drivers of that change. And we have to rethink that. So we do think that this notion of smart regulation, reframing what regulation is there to achieve, outcome oriented, getting rid of regulations that are no longer relevant, changing the mindset of the regulators from tick the box, input driven regulation to output, what am I actually trying to drive towards regulation will unleash an enormous amount of capital into the system. So we actually did this study with the banks and we said even if you could just take their take down the risk and compliance function of the global banks by 10 to 20%, it actually allows them to retain 25 to 50 billion more in earnings. And if they then leverage that and go out to and drive that into the market, that's $500 billion to a trillion dollars of incremental capital that they could bring into the markets just by making them more efficient. So that's the use of technology, changing the regulatory framework and then unleashing that technology to allow us to deploy more capital into the market. So it's pretty exciting moment, but it's a moment where we have to grasp it and we have to take hold of it.
- [21:44]
Clark Murphy
Okay, so let's talk about grasping it. Those are complex stakeholders. You push too hard, you got a real problem. You don't push hard enough. A trillion dollars doesn't get to the markets. As a leader, how do you think about multiple stakeholders and when to push, when to listen? Others want to learn how you think about multi stakeholder engagement.
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Adina Friedman
Well, I think first you have to listen.
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Clark Murphy
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
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Adina Friedman
So what are their problems? What are their needs? How, you know, how are they navigating those problems? But also what new capabilities can be brought to change the trajectory of how they manage those problems? The second is, and then you listen to your employees and you listen to regulators and you listen to legislators. It's super important to engage the ecosystem to understand. To understand them, so that you can understand their motivations, their incentives, their worries, all of that. And you then bring that back in and say, okay, well, how do we then frame out a solution? And we are a solutions provider, and we do sit at the center of the capital market, certainly, and now the broader system. So how can we then leverage that technology, change the way that they think about that regulatory obligation, hopefully help steer. But recognizing we're an influencer, in some cases, we're a driver when it comes to technology and what we can control, we're driving that down. We're driving the industry down a road. But we also have to recognize that they deal with stakeholders, too. So if you drive too fast and you drive too hard. Tissue rejection.
- [23:16]
Clark Murphy
Right.
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Adina Friedman
So you have to kind of think about how do you pace it, how do you explain it, how do you communicate it, how do you then find those first steps that make them trust you and then start to go a little faster?
- [23:27]
Clark Murphy
Your history, nasdaq's history is a disruptor from the day you started the exchange, and now you're a listener, you're a global partner to governments and regulators. Can you still be a disruptor? Are you still a disruptor as an institution? And you have fintechs and you have private equity firms and you have banks who are actually trying to compete with you. How do you stay ahead? And are you a disruptor still?
- [23:54]
Adina Friedman
Well, first, I would say on that last point, in terms of those firms that are trying to compete, they're also our largest clients.
- [24:00]
Clark Murphy
I know, I know.
- [24:01]
Adina Friedman
But recognize binary thinking doesn't work in the financial industry. There's a lot of shades of gray between they're a competitor versus their client versus their partner. There's a lot of opportunity for you to partner with firms that might compete in one space and partner another. So we are very much of a view of let's be multidimensional and have lots of frenemies. Yeah. Or we call it coopetition. So I like that better because it's a little more optimistic, but at the same time. So that's just something to point out. But as a disruptor, so we were truly a disruptor. When Nasdaq started in 1971, all trading occurred in a manual format in one building. And so, and with some firms piped in, we said, okay, so how do you. There's two ways we disrupted. Number one, how do you allow more companies to tap public investors if they're not profitable? So we changed the listing rules and allowed unprofitable companies to come public. Never had happened before. So that was like a hard line that the markets had. And we said, let's change that. So that's number one. And that unleashed the ability for all these tech companies, innovators to come to market and seek public capital. The second was how do you engage more of the, what we call democratized access to the public markets by becoming a network instead of having it in a building. Use technology, and this is in 1971, and use network technology to go out and allow anyone in the country to connect into our exchange and operate within the market successfully. And we did. It was technologically really, really groundbreaking. So that was how we started. But we didn't have anything to lose, right? We were just, there's a difference in how you disrupt when you are just a startup and you're just trying to disrupt and you have nothing really to lose. Today we are the steward of the capital markets around the world. So we have a lot of responsibility and obligation on resilience. So being hyper resilient is just table stakes for us. But you can still disrupt on top of that. So what we thought about is for instance, markets have always operated inside of data center, our own data centers. Every market around the world operates inside their own data centers or defined data centers. How do we disrupt that and say cloud technology is the future of the world? How are we going to make sure we can operate in the future of the world? How do you take markets from a fixed data center centric world to a cloud world? And we rewrote our entire trade lifecycle technology, microservice architected cloud native. And we then partnered with a cloud provider, AWS to say how do we actually bring first cloud technology into our data center but then also push as much of our workloads out of our data center into cloud. So we've been doing that for many years and now with AI, we're well positioned to play offense on AI. We had a new AI driven order type that came into the markets last year. It actually more than doubled the volume in that particular order type. We've launched Genai copilots across our solutions in the software space. And so because we've been willing to frankly take a risk, help our clients take risks, we're now deploying that, by the way, that trade lifecycle technology across the markets in the world. We're moving markets to cloud. It's super cool. It actually is allowing us to be not a disruptor, but a leader, I would say, in helping them manage to the future. And that's how we see our role today.
- [27:26]
Clark Murphy
So as you manage to the future and you're a product manager by background, so when you talk about this, it's, you know, you can see the passion. But managing for the future means having the best talent, particularly in a tech driven business. People grow up here and I know from our business they're, they are really, really well respected. How do you keep talent? What's the culture of? We want to win, we want to be here. We want you to stay here for decades, not years. How do you look at talent in the tech world?
- [27:56]
Adina Friedman
Yeah, well, first, we are extremely fortunate to have a lot of long tenured power here and it's really special. So I think the first thing is we are a mission driven company and we want people who believe. So we say we want missionaries, not mercenaries. Right. So we want people who really believe in the mission of what NASDAQ does in terms of economic progress. You know, being the trusted fabric to the world's financial system is our vision. And we want everyone to believe in that and be a part of that. And we live it every day. So they do feel that they're part of something important. The second thing is we have global talent. So we are not wedded to a country or a city. We have talent across the us, across all of the world. We have talent in I think more than 50 countries, but we have defined centers of excellence around the world that allow us to draw talent from around the world. And that I think is obviously hugely beneficial and we know how to do that at scale. And then I think that also we really believe in that culture of bringing diverse points of view and diverse backgrounds together in a performance culture and allowing people to stand up and come up with ideas and be a challenger. But also in a respectful way. Let's make sure we channel that into decisions and we go forward as a team. So that's kind of the culture we also bring here too.
- [29:20]
Clark Murphy
I love the missionaries versus mercenaries. But you yourself, you've always been an athlete. I think you're a taekwondo black belt. Yeah, black belt, right. You've also been famous for sitting on the third Baseline of your family members playing baseball games quite successfully. How do you keep the competitive edge? Culturally, you are competitive. I've seen it. But we're mission driven because people are trying to find the balance and it's hard.
- [29:50]
Adina Friedman
Yeah. So I think everything starts with a client. I've always said that if you only look to the left and the right and you look at what your competitors are doing, you're not actually reaching your full potential because they may not be very good at what they do. Right, right, right, right.
- [30:06]
Clark Murphy
Let's hope so, if you're gonna win.
- [30:07]
Adina Friedman
Right, right. So the first thing you have to start with is the client. If you really understand the client deeply and you understand what their. What their needs are, they may not need know exactly what they need or how they need to achieve it, but they do know what their challenges are and what their needs are. And if you listen to those deeply and then you are there to help them meet those needs, exceed those needs, make sure that you're driving that those capabilities into the future with them, a lot of the rest of it kind of takes care of itself. Now we are hyper competitive, though, and we want to win every single deal, every single, every listing, every new client. But we do make sure that people understand it's in a constructive environment, meaning we want to win everything. If we don't win, what can we learn from it? We don't beat people down for it. We just say, what can we learn from that to get better? How do we talk to the client and find out why we lost cause it's actually again, comes back to the client, what is it that we should be rethinking? And then complacency is the killer of every great company. So you just have to make sure you never get complacent about what your capabilities are.
- [31:14]
Clark Murphy
You travel a lot, you speak a lot at conferences. We just talked about staying at the edge of technology and innovation. Cloud, AI. How do you learn? How do you professionally keep pushing yourself intellectually or strategically?
- [31:34]
Adina Friedman
Well, I love to learn, and I learn by talking to people. I mean, I certainly listen to podcasts and other things like that. I read. But I find that my most effective way of learning is learning from the experience of others. And I do get super lucky because I have this incredible community of clients who are the greatest innovators of our day. So I get to go talk to them. I'll see them at conferences or events or they might come here and I'll have a moment just to ask, what are you working on and how Are you thinking about things differently? And they will engage with us because we are a partner to them, and they see us as a partner. But I then also go to a couple of events a year where I don't have any of my clients there, and I get invited to this one. That's just amazing. And it's all about the future of technology. But I'm talking about, like, 20 years into the future, right?
- [32:22]
Clark Murphy
Real future.
- [32:23]
Adina Friedman
Academics and people who are thinking very differently about what's possible. And I just go there and listen and learn, and I take copious notes. And then I come back to the team and I say, this is what I learned. So we try to do. I try to do that at least once or twice a year to go somewhere where I'm not actually meeting with clients. I'm just learning. And that makes a huge difference. It's so energizing, too.
- [32:46]
Clark Murphy
All jokes aside, you have worked here almost your entire career. There's a thought. Today I have four children in their mid to late 20s who ask, Do I need to move to be successful? And there is more movement in Gen Z and Millennials. Your advice for maximizing career opportunity. I heard one that I asked for it, which not everyone asks for it, but what do you say about someone who stays in one company a long time or how long, or for young leaders to move ahead?
- [33:19]
Adina Friedman
Well, I think first, it's important to. When you're choosing to go to a company, you're not just going for the job that you're walking into, but you're going for the opportunity that could be there. And so you have to understand the company you're going into. Do you believe in what they do? Do you like the people around you? Have you done enough research to know if they have opportunity in front of them? Are you there to fix something? Are you there to drive something? Are you there to make change? But recognizing that there's an opportunity that you're walking into, so what is that opportunity in front of you? And so once you're there, the first thing to do is do a great job on your job.
- [33:55]
Clark Murphy
Yeah, I agree.
- [33:56]
Adina Friedman
So that's the first thing. A lot of other everything else kind of. It makes everything easier. If you're doing a great job, what you do. The second thing to do is to think, okay, in five years, where would I want to be in this company? So don't think about where you want to be somewhere else. Where would you want to be in this company? And if you see jobs that you find really compelling in five years that you would want to have. Then figure out a path to get there. Talk to your manager, talk to your peers. Understand what skills you need to develop to position yourself to be in that role in five years and then 10 years and then 20, like you can really. But if you look forward in five years and you're in a company and you go, I don't want any of those jobs. I don't find any of them compelling. I don't see a. Not that you don't see a path, but you just don't want it. That's when you start to say, well, maybe this isn't where I should be and I should start to look elsewhere. But recognize that don't do it out of a myopic view of you. Look at it as an expansive view of, okay, maybe I don't know what those other jobs are. Let me learn about them before I come to a conclusion and I do or don't want them. You know, make sure you're curious enough to really think ahead, define your goals. They can change, but at least have them. And then know you're going to find that there's going to be a point at which you go, yeah, either that goal isn't achievable or attainable, or I don't want it and so I've got to have to go and find it somewhere else. And that's when you start to look around.
- [35:21]
Clark Murphy
I think the learning and the curiosity and the looking ahead. I completely agree. So we end every podcast with some rapid fire questions.
- [35:29]
Adina Friedman
Okay.
- [35:29]
Clark Murphy
Don't even think about it. Just need the answer.
- [35:31]
Adina Friedman
Here we go.
- [35:32]
Clark Murphy
Off the training room. Your favorite professional sports team or organization.
- [35:37]
Adina Friedman
The Washington Commander. Yay.
- [35:38]
Clark Murphy
Mine too. Oh, who you can tell who grew up outside Washington, D.C. in this crowd. What is a fact about you or a talent that not many people would know?
- [35:48]
Adina Friedman
Well, when I was in college, I learned how to fly.
- [35:52]
Clark Murphy
Oh, there you go.
- [35:53]
Adina Friedman
Yeah, I became a private pilot in college.
- [35:54]
Clark Murphy
Get back to the risk taking.
- [35:56]
Adina Friedman
Exactly. Loved it. Yep.
- [35:58]
Clark Murphy
Is there a mantra or slogan that sums you up or how you think about making decisions?
- [36:04]
Adina Friedman
Well, okay, so not how I make decisions, but one thing I have in my office on a big piece of wood is knock on wood. So I'm a big believer. And if you're going to say a statement, you better knock on wood. And make sure you feel like I'm a little superstitious.
- [36:19]
Clark Murphy
I'm hugely superstitious. All of our kids have now learned that they every time I say something knock on wood, it's hysterical. I have a lot of other superstitions. Who was your mentor that had the biggest impact on you?
- [36:30]
Adina Friedman
Well, ultimately, honestly, I can say that my father probably had the biggest impact on me. But if I look out and look at the mentors, I had more than one. But I would put Bob Greifeld as both a sponsor and a mentor who had a huge impact on me.
- [36:43]
Clark Murphy
Best piece of advice they may have given you.
- [36:45]
Adina Friedman
Okay. So what I really liked about working with Bob is every year he would give me a performance review, and every year he'd say, you know what you're good at? Let me tell you what you can get better at. Okay, so what I really liked about that was he knew I had confidence in myself to understand what I was doing well, and if I didn't have confidence, he would have told me, I think. But he was always focused on how I could get better. And he did it in such a way that it made me want to listen. And that is the best thing he could have done for me because I did become a better executive. With every lesson, he shared.
- [37:19]
Clark Murphy
Your legacy at nasdaq, what will it be?
- [37:22]
Adina Friedman
I'm too early in my tenure to say what my legacy is going to be.
- [37:25]
Clark Murphy
Very good. Very good. So, listen, thank you for being here. Or actually, I should say thank you for letting us be here. Appreciate it. A lot of lessons learned here. I think what struck me the most was this is a defining moment to put capital to work. The ability to unleash, whether it's 500 million or several trillion, in the stakeholder management of regulators and markets is fascinating. Nasdaq at the center of those markets, has a unique window to listen and to learn. And in fact, your. Your key moment about listening to stakeholders makes NASDAQ better at what it does. Coopetition. We're going to take that home. I'm going to borrow that one. I must say, please do. It's far better than some of the alternatives. The other is, which I think we should all think about, is a forever owner. There aren't many forever owners. We've worked with lots of families around the world and some companies that say they're long term, but they're not forever owners, which is a distinct competitive advantage. Transparency in markets, liquidity. These are the things that keep markets moving in a moment of uncertainty. The fact that NASDAQ's committed to that gives a lot of people an easier way to sleep because there is so much uncertainty. And finally thinking ahead as an individual leader and executive, do you want to be there in five years or not there. And are you learning and taking the toughest assignments you can for visibility, ability, for risk taking, for success, but also for many people, men and women, ask for it because it may not be given to you if you don't ask. So lots to learn from. Thank you for having us here. Really appreciate it.
- [39:10]
Adina Friedman
Thanks Clark. It was great to be here. So thank you.
- [39:12]
Clark Murphy
Take care.