In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Nasdaq CEO: Tech Innovation, Leadership and Fighting Financial Crime

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Meet the woman leading the exchange where $30 trillion in market value trades. Adena Friedman takes us behind the scenes at Nasdaq, revealing how this iconic institution is reshaping global finance through technology. Discover how Nasdaq is fighting trillion-dollar financial crimes and hear personal insights on leadership from one of the most influential voices in global finance. Tune in!In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Une Solheim.Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, I'm Nicolai Tangin, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, and today we are thrilled to be joined by Adina Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq. Now Adina transformed Nasdaq into a global tech powerhouse, and she's now one of the most influential leaders in global finance, so Adina, welcome. Well, it's great to be here. Thank you so much, Nicolai, and welcome to Nasdaq. Well, exactly, because I'm visiting you, so I'm sitting here with a Nasdaq mug, you know, and feeling kind of part of something

pretty big. We'll just start with the basic here. So what is Nasdaq? Sure. Well, Nasdaq, of course, is a world-class market operator, and we're extremely, extremely proud of that foundation. Yeah. But as you know, we have expanded our business to become a global technology provider

to the financial industry. And we focused on expanding our business in three key pillars. And they all are kind of formed the foundation of a good market. So we've got our liquidity pillar, transparency, and integrity. And if you think about it,

you need all three of those things to make for a world-class capital market. But as we've kind of become a technology provider, partner to our clients, we've used those themes to really expand our business. Now on the cup I had here, it says NASDAQ rewrites tomorrow. So what is tomorrow going to look like for NASDAQ? Well, tomorrow we are now, we're going from a market operator to a technology partner. And over time, we want to become kind of operator to a technology partner and over time we want to become kind of what I would call an ecosystem partner to the world's capital markets and

the financial system. So our vision is to be the trusted fabric to the world's financial system and that really does mean that we are not only here just to be a software provider to our clients but to help them solve their problems in more material ways. How do we drive from delivering software to delivering a market ecosystem that makes the capital markets around the world more efficient and effective? How do we become that risk management partner that really drives the banks to be higher integrity as well as more efficient so they can drive more liquidity into the markets?

Those are the types of things that we think about as we expand the business. You say that you want to be a trusted partner and you for sure are trusted by some very big companies, right? Because is it the five biggest companies in the world that are listed on Asstank? The seven, but yeah. The seven, hey. So, you know, you want to buy shares in Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, you basically do it on Asstank. But you also have a lot of people in Sweden. We do. How come?

Yes, in fact, we own and operate the markets in the Nordics other than Norway. You also have a lot of people in Sweden. How come? We do. Yes. In fact, we own and operate the markets in the Nordics other than Norway. So Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and the three Baltic countries, we own and operate those markets. And we also have a market technology business where we provide technology to the world's markets. So 130 markets rely on us for their technology to run their markets. And that's also operated out of Sweden.

Why haven't you got Norway? We wanted to have Norway. rely on us for their technology to run their markets. And that's also operating out of Sweden. Sorry, why haven't you got Norway? We wanted to have Norway. And why didn't you get it? You probably remember. Well, we decided to take a friendly approach with the Norwegian exchange. And unfortunately, there was another exchange operator

that decided to take a less friendly approach. And they unfortunately won. But we did try very hard to come in as a friendly partner to the Norwegian exchange. Does each country need a self-exchange? It's a good question. I would say that each country wants its own exchange. And it's important to recognize, when you're forming a country,

there are a few key pillars that really underpin building a country. You've got roads and transportation. You've got education. And you have airports and things that make it so people can come in and out of the country, but you also have to have an economy. And when you look at the economy of a country,

it's really underpinned by the central bank and the exchange operator and then the banking system. And exchanges are kind of a critical pillar and they become kind of a national icon to a country. Now, does every country need to have its own exchange? I would say in today's modern capital markets, capital flows are global, money moves seamlessly around the world,

but there are very local elements to exchanges where they appeal to local innovators, local market participants, local investors. And so there is a benefit to having a country have its exchange, but having it connected into a global ecosystem to allow for more capital flows is what we think is the future of markets.

Some people are moving the listings, right? So instead of being listed in London, for instance, they want to be listed in the US because they think they get better valuations. How does this work? What is driving these differences in valuation between countries? Well, I think first of all, having a listing in multiple countries has been a part of the markets for quite some time. The ADR, probably American Depository Receipt, or the GDR, which

is a global depository receipt. I mean those are contracts that have allowed companies from other countries to go and put a second listing into a different country. But more and more what we're finding is it's not so much the ADR that's coming, but the primary listing is moving. And I think the reason why you're seeing companies choose from outside the United States, choose to move their primary listing to the United States is really because today, the United States, the markets are extremely liquid.

They're the most liquid in the world. We have the most diversified investor base in the world. So you have a really healthy retail ecosystem in addition to an institutional ecosystem, in addition to, let's say, a hedge fund community and other players that really drive market liquidity. And that allows companies to raise capital more efficiently. And we also have a research ecosystem that allows investors to understand these companies more deeply, which then gives them more confidence to invest. And all of that is not by accident. I mean, that's been the contract of the United States

in terms of all the work we've done to develop our markets and the innovation ecosystem is now playing to our benefit. I would point though to Sweden as being an anomalous and very, very positive story in Europe. And I really mean that. And there's some great anecdotes as well as data. Yeah, they go to great start ups. I mean, it's just an amazing, amazing start-up ecosystem, great innovation culture, and a

great equity culture by their citizens. So I was looking at the data, and 37% of people in Sweden have direct retail accounts for equities, for domestic equities. And so if you think about how powerful that is inside an economy where you have retail, then you have a great pension system and they deploy capital into the market. Then you have global flows, global players who come in and participate in that market

because we have a great market system. And you also have these tax advantage savings accounts that encourage the citizenship to get involved in retail, I mean, in investing in equities. And all of that creates a combustion that, again, creates a really great market ecosystem in Sweden. So it's possible to do this in countries outside the United States, for sure, but it's a lot of ingredients

that have to come together to create the right recipe. If I start up a company and it gets really big, are you going to call me and ask me whether I want to list on Nasdaq? Is that how it works? I would say that if you start a company and it doesn't have to get really big, we will call you up and ask whether I want to list on Nasdaq? Is that how it works? I would say that if you start a company, it doesn't have to get really big. We will call you up and ask if you want to list on Nasdaq. So we list companies of all sizes on Nasdaq.

And we're very happy to have a startup come earlier in their life and choose to make their stock available to everyday consumers and everyday retail investors. And then grow up as a company. Like when Amazon went public many, you know, a couple decades ago, It was tiny, right? They were worth $300 million. And they've grown up as a public company

and done remarkably well in the public market. So that's a great success story. Do all their exchanges try to steal them away from you? You know, it used to be that there was kind of a view that Nasdaq was the home to smaller companies, but today Nasdaq is home to the largest companies in the world. What happened was these companies would come to Nasdaq as small companies, but then they'd stay.

How big is it? 52 years later, we are now the home to... We have $30 trillion of market cap listed on Nasdaq and we are home to both the largest companies in the world. I would say that we're the home- So 30 trillion and New York Stock Exchange? Somewhere right around that. So we're almost equal. We are really neck and neck now for the market cap of the listed companies listed on Nasdaq versus New York. And the fact is that once they got to Nasdaq, we gave them a home when, frankly, at the time,

because we were formed in 1971 and at the time New York had rules that didn't allow these companies to list there. So we started as a tech innovator in our space, we democratized access to the capital markets for retail and we actually had listing rules that allowed young innovative companies to come before they were profitable. And that was a change of paradigm in the United States. They came, so the first class of companies to come to Nasdaq, Comcast, Applied Materials, Intel, and then a really cool truck building company called Packar. That was the first class.

And they're still here, they're all in the Nasdaq 100, and then we of course attracted Microsoft and Apple. And those companies came and then they stayed because they realized that we gave them a home, we gave them great service, we gave them a great market, and since then we've also become great partners to them from a technological perspective. At the same time, there are more private companies than before. Now it's partly because of private equity, but it's also because many companies choose

to stay private. So why should companies go public and have a listing instead of being private? Well, I think we could have a really good, engaged discussion about this, Nikolai, as a large asset owner yourself, as to how do you look at asset allocation across private and publics,

and how do you think about the public markets and what you're trying to achieve in the public markets versus the private markets? But I think that there are structural and cyclical reasons why the public markets are more or less attractive to companies. But cyclically, of course, it's just a matter of are public investors ready to underwrite risk in a time when you have changing interest rate environment like we're having right now.

But more structurally, the question is, is the burden of being a public company such that it makes it so that it becomes more attractive to remain private? And that's where we have to work with the government to think about the balance of the regulatory balance between the responsibility of being a public company and making your stock available to everyday consumers and everyday retail investors, but also the ability for you to continue to drive your strategy and make changes

and continue to progress in a way that is still attractive to institutional investors. Will you also make money on private companies at some stage, you think? We actually are involved in the private markets today in two ways. The first is the Nasdaq private market, which allows for private companies to seek liquidity, periodic liquidity in their stock. So we can buy and sell companies even though they're not listed on a stock exchange. That's correct. But you have to be a qualified buyer or an institutional buyer. So there's a limited number of investors who have that available to them.

And then also we support the asset manager and asset owner ecosystem. But with our tool called investment, where we allow for asset owners to make smart asset allocation decisions by seeking out the asset managers that they find most attractive, both public and private. And so we do get involved in the private markets in those ways. Now, there's been a trend over the last years towards high frequency trading, right? So extremely frequent trading, you know, measure it in nanoseconds. We do. I suspect, I read that the light travels only 30 meters in a nanosecond.

So pretty short period. Now, how does this high frequency trading work? Is it good for you? Is it good for you? I mean, I would say that it's good for the system. So I will say it that way because what we look look for with high-fricidity trading firms, they really are the modern market makers. They're committing capital into the market.

And even if they're committing capital into market for a very short period of time, they are there to make it so that at any given time, you as an asset owner or any asset manager or any retail investor can come in and put an order in the market and get it executed instantaneously. At any time, and there's price discovery all the time, meaning there's always a bid offer

spread available in that stock so you know exactly where you can buy it and sell it, at what price. That's what the high-frequency firms provide to markets all over the world. And while they are doing it in very small increments and they're doing it in very short periods of time, they're there constantly to be that liquidity provider. So they provide an important service, and at the same time, they make money. So of course, they're going to make money in terms of very small tickets and the differences in the spread, as well as making it so that they're taking risk and they're getting rewarded

for taking risk. There's something called dark pools. How do you work with them? So the dark pools actually compete with the lit markets. So that's a little bit different. So I would say that you know. So they're bad news. Well.

For you. So the financial industry. Because we think they're good news. Yeah. Well, the financial industry is a world of co-opetition. So I just need to say that. There's no kind of bright lines here. It's really a matter of finding ways

to work with everyone in the context, and basically working with our clients where they are. So for dark pools, NASDAQ does compete for order flow from dark pools. But we also provide technology to dark pools. So we actually do provide our trading systems and make those available to dark pools if they want to partner with us.

And we will actually operate those dark pools on their behalf as a technology provider. But at the same time, we will compete with them to try to get the order flow onto the lit markets. Now, in the US and in Europe, so in the Europe, I would say about 50% of the trading in Europe occurs in dark pools and in internalizers. And almost the same in the US.

It's about 45% of the trading occurs in dark pools and in internalizers. So in a dark pool, you don't really see who the buyer and the seller is. I mean, that's the challenge, is that if you're an investor and you want to understand what's the best price to buy and sell my stock, the dark pools don't contribute to that information because everything's happening in the dark. That's why they're called dark pools.

And you have to be a very sophisticated investor to gain access to them. So we think that it's important to make sure you're at least creating a competitive playing field that allows the lit venues to compete on an equal basis with it's important to make sure you're at least creating a competitive playing field that allows the lit venues to compete on an equal basis with the dark pools to make it so we can be the first place that you want to place that order and not into the dark. The fact that there is so much concentration in the market now, you know, a few companies account for a huge proportion of the value of the stock exchange, is that a worry? I mean, I would have to say that's just the nature of the economy as it's kind of been progressing, right?

You have these huge companies that have really defined the future of our economy really, in terms of the technological innovation that they're underwriting, the risk they're taking, the scale that they're providing to really underpin the future of technology. And they are therefore become very large parts of the economy because the entire economy is becoming technological.

And so it's really the natural progression of economy towards these technological phenomenon, really. I think that at the same time, there are still 5,000 companies listed on Nasdaq. So it's not like there are many, many companies that are innovators and change agents and people who are in every single sector of the economy creating change, driving new things, bringing new ideas into the market and also and or just very mature companies operating in every sector of the economy. So I don't actually agree that it's a bad thing.

It is the nature of the economy as it exists today because technology is such a huge driving force of the economy as it exists today because technology is such a huge driving force of the economy. Changing tack a bit here. So Adina, you became CEO in 2017. What does one do when one becomes the CEO of a big company? How do you approach it? Well I think first it's important to understand what you're walking into.

So I started it now as, I guess, an intern 31 years ago. So I knew the company very well. Well, so you were at university. Right after. Yeah. So I knew the company very well coming into the role of CEO. But you also have to make sure that you're looking at it with fresh eyes and understanding kind of where

is the company at the time. The second thing is that I came into a company that was very well managed and had a great foundation. So it was, I had the fortune of coming into the seat and playing offense from day one. So my first year as CEO, we really focused on driving our strategy. Did you set a new leader group when you came in? Not when I took over as CEO, but in the years progressing up till I became CEO, I was able to develop the team

that I was able to have as CEO. So the prior CEO gave me the latitude to say, OK, how do you want to form your team? How do you want to make sure you've got the right people in the right seats to take us forward? And he and I worked together on making that happen. So that I came in with a strong foundation, great business, great team.

And then it was a matter of, okay, but how can we run faster? How long did you work together in the transition period? I came back to NASDAQ. I had left NASDAQ to go and become the CFO of Carlyle for three years, and I helped them go public. And I came back in 2014 as president and became CEO in 2017. So we worked together almost three years. Yeah.

And that I think was excellent. But I had to prove myself when I got back. It wasn't like, oh, you're going to be CEO. It was, you could become CEO. You know, come back and perform. But were there other people at the same time who also could become CEO? Like, was it a race going on?

There was no race. It was more just making sure that I was ready to take on the job. Okay, so if you don't make a compete fool of yourself, you will be the CEO. Or if I can show that I make a compete fool of yourself, you will be the CEO. Or if I can show that I can really drive the company forward, I can be the CEO, which I did, I like to think. But this transition was very smooth.

It was kind of a textbook transition. And so I took the job. And the first thing we did, we had two strategic efforts right when I started. One was, let's redefine the strategy of the company. And two was, let's really dive into how can we revitalize the US capital markets. Because again, we were at a period where we weren't getting

a lot of IPOs and the regulatory burden was becoming quite onerous and so we wanted to make sure we were recalibrating the markets. But the focus on strategy was a great way to engage the team right off the bat. So we know that we're a great market operator, but we also knew that we had the ingredients to be a lot more. So we took kind of a three-pronged approach to evaluating the strategy. One was, what are the technology trends that are going to redefine our industry in the next decade?

So let's have conviction on that. Two was, what are the industry trends that are going to redefine our clients over the next decade? So we know, how do we want to align ourselves with that? And three was, what do our clients think we're great at? What do they think we're not good at? And where do they see us as a strategic partner? So we took all of that input and we brought it to the team. And we said, OK, how do we redefine where we're going?

We had technology assets We were already providing technology to other exchanges We were providing technology to corporates to help them manage their lives in the public markets But it wasn't we weren't a scaled player in that space We were very niche provider and we went out to our clients. He said you're really good at what you do You're a great market operator, but here my biggest problem So with banks it was dealing with a lot of regulatory risk, dealing with a lot of capital risk and we've got a lot to do in managing criminals out of our networks.

So then you bought quite a few tech companies. That's right. And then we also- What kind of things did you buy? So for that particular area of our strategy, which we kind of look at as the liquidity and the integrity strategy, We focus in two areas. One is scaling up our capital markets technology to be not only the best at providing technology

to other exchanges, we also rewrote our entire trade lifecycle technology ourselves that we're now deploying to our clients, but we also scaled up in terms of being a great technology provider to other exchanges. And through the CLEPSO, which is through the Adenta acquisition, the Eclipso product is a scaled risk management platform for all of the market participants in the world. And so it allows them to manage their lives in the markets much more successfully.

So that was one part of our strategy. The other part was we bought Verifin and AxiMSL, also part of the Adenta transaction, to be a scale provider of regulatory reporting and anti-financial crime technology. And we complement that with our surveillance technology. So we now can help them really manage all of the integrity capabilities within the banks and brokers

and all the capital markets tech within the banks and brokers and exchanges that really make it so that they can get on the field successfully and be successful. So now the stock exchange bit is actually the division where you make the least money, which is quite interesting. But now this company called Verifin, which is a leader in anti-financial crime solutions.

Yes. And so I didn't know you had that before I started to read up on you. Why are you fighting financial crime? How does that come into it? Yeah, it's a great question. So we have been a provider of surveillance technology for trading firms and for exchanges since 2010. And what that means is we helped them root

out market manipulation and criminal activity within the markets and within their trading firms. And when we went and talked to them about what could we do to expand, and we did a complete strategic review of how can we expand this business? Great business, it's growing really well, it's a SaaS technology, it's very modern. So how can we make it so that we get bigger there? Because it's a great segment for us to play in. They all said, what we're really challenged with

is anti-money laundering and fraud within the banking system. Can you help us with that? And we said, okay, well, that's good to know. So we went back and we evaluated every single company in the space of anti-financial crime. And we actually came out with one name, one company that we thought was the best in the business. And by far the most technologically advanced, 2,500 clients. They were very skilled in the United States.

But they hadn't yet reached the tier one and tier two banks. And that's where we're really strong. So we knew we could compliment their capabilities and that's Verifin. And they were not for sale. So- But you managed to buy them, you chomped your way into it. Yeah, we did.

We went to the owner, we talked to them, we went to the firm, we talked to them. And at the end of the day, they saw us as a great partner because they're growing 20 plus percent a year. So they're just a fast grower, incredible technology. We can learn a lot from them, but they can learn a lot from us in terms of how they go up markets.

Is there a lot of crime in the financial markets? There's an enormous amount of crime in the financial markets. What kind of crime? So there's an estimate that there's $3 trillion that is laundered through the system, the financial system globally every year, and half a trillion dollars that's lost to fraud every year. And that's globally. In the U.S., we kind of, we zeroed in on the fraud challenge.

And in the United States, there's $150 billion lost to fraud every year. If you think about that, if we were able to recover all that fraud and keep that in the right hands and to the hands of the consumers, that would increase our GDP by 50 basis points. So the GDP of the country would be growing at a half percent more if that money wasn't lost to fraud. Well, we can do that in Europe. Well, and in Europe, I think the unique element of the United States and why Verifant's been so successful here is that there's a law that allows banks to share certain information

in order to fight crime. So they can share it with a third party. They can't share it with each other. They can share it with a neutral third party. We are that neutral third party. So we have created a consortia data lake made up of all of the bank's transactions from across 2,500 banks. We get about a billion transactions a week through that platform.

And we then apply very advanced AI algorithms to be better than anyone in rooting out criminal behavior. That then makes it so the banks could be more efficient, fewer false positives, and more effective by showing them real positives to make it so that their fraud program is much more effective. Same with AML. So it's a more complicated problem,

but a similar approach. Let's move on to you and kind of the leadership. Now, what kind of experiences during your career have you had that you think have shaped your leadership style the most? Well, I had a couple. So the first was when I was 30, I became the head of the data division.

So the company decided to reorganize. We had a trading division and a listings division and data set within the trading division. And they decided to branch that out and make it its own division. So we ended up with three divisions at NASDAQ. And when I was 30, they asked me to be the head of it. So that was a big one.

And I had been running products, I've been running some of the data products as a product manager, a couple of the trading products. So I was already kind of owning the business of these products. But then to run an entire division was a huge step up. And I learned a lot, I had to learn a lot because first of all, I had to recognize the fact

that I didn't know everything for the first time and I had to really rely on others who knew a lot more than I did. And the second thing is that I had to scale a business. I mean, I had to create a business and scale a business within a company and that was a great opportunity for me to demonstrate leadership skills. Did you have a mentor who helped you on the way? I did, so my first manager was a great mentor.

And he was my manager for seven years. He ran the trading business. So then when I branched out and took the data business, he actually retired. But he remained a great mentor to me and just someone who could help me. What does a good mentor do? A good mentor is there to listen, to give you.

And I would say mentor slash sponsor, because I think they're slightly different, but in that particular case, he was both a mentor and a sponsor. Number one. So what's the difference? I would say a mentor is someone who does not have a vested interest in your personal career, that they're there to be kind of an outside advisor to look in and say, let's talk about where you want to go, what are the things that you do well, what do you want to be able

to do better, what's holding you back and helping you navigate your career but without a vested interest in your career. A sponsor has a vested interest in your career, meaning they might be your boss or your boss's boss and they're there to say, let me figure out how to catalyze your career and make it so that you can move faster up an organization. But here are the skills and capabilities that you need to be developing. Let's work together on making sure that that happens. That's a sponsor.

How many people do you feel that you sponsor? That you have a, like a, where you have in a way a vested interest or you really follow the carrier moves? Well, I mean, I certainly, in a way, you are a sponsor to all of your drug reports, but they've gotten to the point where they have moved up all the way through the organization.

So ordinarily, if you're a sponsor, you're looking one or two or three levels down in the organization. And I would say that I don't claim myself to be a sponsor, because oftentimes it's not something you explicitly discuss. But there are certainly many people within the organization that I feel that I have a vested interest in watching

and helping them with their success. As a mentor, I do actually take on formal mentorship. And I usually have two mentors at a time. So, or mentees, sorry, at a time. Further down in the organization, where I'm there to help them think about their career differently or to help them develop skills. But I'm not directly assigned to helping them

with their career, but I am ultimately helping them think about their career differently so that they can then navigate their career, but I am ultimately helping them think about their career differently so that they can then navigate their career more successfully. What did you learn at Carlisle? Well, I went to Carlisle to be their CFO and to help them go public. So a few things. First, Carlisle is a different part of the industry, so I learned private equity and a fascinating part of the business. I'd always in my heart thought I wanted to go into the buy

side because my dad had been in the investment management industry. My brother was running a hedge fund. So I thought this is where I was destined to be. So I went into Carlisle and learned the private equity industry. That was one. Two, very different culture.

It's a collaborative culture as opposed to Nasik being a little bit more, at the time at least, a command and control culture. So understanding how to manage a partnership as opposed to a C Corp, a more time at least, a command and control culture. So understanding how to manage a partnership as opposed to a C Corp, a more hierarchical business, was very interesting. I had three bosses, so very different way of doing business. And I think I learned a lot from that in a positive way.

And then the third thing was that the finance organization at that time was bigger. It was more complicated, and it was very global. So for me, I also was able to expand my leadership skills while we took the company through a very unique journey of going public. So learning how to take a company public was a great skill because when I got back to Nasdaq,

I was able to look out and say, what was that process really like? Are we doing enough to support our clients as they're going public? Can Nasdaq be a better partner to our clients as in the process of going public. So it actually brought a lot of knowledge back that I was able to apply to the business. Do you think you're a better leader now than when you were 30?

Oh, definitely. How are you different? Well, when you're 30 and you're taking on, you kind of want to think that you know everything for one thing. And second of all, you're trying to figure out how not to do everything, but to make it all get done the way that you want it. That's like, if you know what I mean, there's a scalability to that that has some limitations.

So when you're 30, you're trying to learn new skills, learn how to manage, learn how to lead, and obviously drive a business forward. And so there's a lot that you're learning that you probably are not doing perfectly along the way. So how do you do it differently now? So when you go from being a manager to a leader, it's the difference between directing people

in their activities to empowering people so that they can be empowered to do a better job at their job than you can do at their job. Isn't that just amazing? And that is a total difference in skill set. Isn't it just amazing you ask people to do something without setting any limitations or defining it to kind of accurately, and then they just come up with things

which is beyond what you could do? Beyond what you could do. So what does that require? I love it. It requires a lot of trust. And you have to, the most important thing a leader can do is put the right people in the right seats. And to think, I want to put a person in that seat

that will be better at their job than I can ever be at their job. Because they, by them being better at their jobs, all of them, then you, the whole company is a better company. And you get a chance to empower them to do great things. And to make sure your capital allocation decision set the vision, set the direction, make sure you've got the capital allocation decisions to drive that direction successfully,

pick a few projects where you want to get personally involved and otherwise empower the team to do great things. But it takes some confidence, right? Yes, I would agree with that. It takes confidence in yourself, but it also takes confidence in the team. And it's difficult to do when you're 30, because if they do everything better than you, they are going to be boss, not you, right? Right.

Well, in fact, that was an interesting moment for me, because when I took the job as the head of the data division, there had been someone who was running data within the trading division. Right. And he was not the person that ultimately took the job. So he worked for me. And that was an interesting transition from being a peer to having that kind of relationship. So I did have to learn, and I learned very

quickly, he knew a ton that I did not know. And he was great at certain elements of the job. So my job was to empower him. And that was the first time I had to figure out how to work with someone who knew more than I did about something and was better at certain things than I was at something. And so how do we empower that person? How do you bring them in as an advisor? And working successfully with them. And I actually have to say, I think that was one of my big learnings when I took the job

as data. So that when I ultimately became the CFO, that was the first time when I realized that I had to go from being a manager to like a true leader. And because there were a lot of elements of finance that there's a lot of expertise embedded in the team, and I was never going to know everything. And that moment of realizing my job is to empower them to do great things, that was a big step up for me personally. Let's talk about culture. How many people are you?

We have about 8,500 employees all around the world. And what do they do? About half the team are technologists, so software engineers and all the people that support software engineering. And then we have obviously a large sales organization, a product team that really helps, what I would call a business product team that really supports the business strategy and the execution of the strategy across the business. And then we have market structure experts, legal and regulatory experts, and then of course all of the corporate

functions. And what type of people do you hire? I mean let's say now you interview me, what are you looking for? So the first thing I would look for is someone who is a team oriented person. So confidence, what we call confidence and humility. Right, so you have to understand who you are, what you're great at, what you're not great at, and how you're going to make sure that you fill in the gaps to make it so that you can deliver great things. The second thing is curiosity, you know, constant curiosity. It is a fast moving world out there.

Technology is moving at a faster pace than ever before. The capital markets are constantly evolving. And if you're not intellectually curious, you're gonna get stuck in a box pretty quickly. And that's not, and you might stick us in a box and that is not where we wanna go. So constant curiosity. And then of course, whatever the expertise

that we're asking for is I think table stakes, of course, to the role. But then the last thing is kindness and, you know, kind of how do you work really well in groups? How do you make it so that you manage by influence, you lead by influence, so that you get more done than your job would necessarily entail? Do you think kindness is underrated in this society? I think that there's a reputation within certain industries that kindness is a weakness. I think kindness is a strength. Our business, we are a technology business, but we are founded on the notion of relationships.

I always say that even in the trading business, where it is a very analytical decision as to whether we go first in your routing tables or not, that relationships break ties. And so at the very least, relationships break ties. But at the most, they drive trust. And if you are the trusted provider, clients naturally want to do more with you. And that trust is the most important thing that you can gain. And I think kindness is a big part of building that trust. I think the concept of kindness is quite funny because when you are 20, the cool

people, they were not kind. They were the least kind, okay? And so nobody wanted to be kind because then you were just like a loser. Now you fast forward until you're 50. And if I were to pick one trait, which I would really love to have in my partner or colleague, it's kindness. Of course. Because at the end of the day, kindness is generally a reflection of confidence too. And I think those things go hand in glove with each other.

And at the end, that's what you're really looking for, is that kind, confident, humble leader, person who can relate to other people, who can get the most out of another person, and who cares about those other people and their success. That's a great leader, and that's what we look for. You mentioned that curiosity was a key thing that you were looking for. What are you curious about these days?

Everything related to the future of technology, everything. Are you curious about anything non-technology related? Oh yeah, so when I was in college I was a political science major. So I really studied, actually my concentration was in Soviet studies. So international relations, what's happening in the world, how do nations come together or fall apart, how do they drive their economies forward, what are the ingredients for a successful economy, a successful society? I care deeply about that, and I'm very curious about that. You also have a black belt in Korean kickboxing.

True. Well done. Is there anything from that sport that you have taken into business? Oh, definitely. Like what? Well, first is the training part of taekwondo, which is Korean kickboxing, is the, in my opinion, the fun part, you know, the part that's hard but fun.

The sparring part of taekwondo is the scary part. But at the same time, you have to put yourself in a position where you have to overcome fear. I think it's important as a person, I think it's important as a leader, that you put yourself in a position to overcome fear. I think it's important as a person, I think it's important as a leader that you put yourself in a position to overcome fear. And Taekwondo is very good at that because I was very fearful of sparring. The second thing is the need to play offense and defense all the time. It's like chess.

I think chess is also another great skill to have if you're gonna be a business leader because you always have to remember every offensive move requires a defensive move at the same time. So in sparring, you can learn that really the hard way because you get all excited, you're about to kick someone in the head and feels great and then they just punch you in the gut.

So you have to make sure that as you are trying to figure out how to position yourself to do the offensive move, that you're not leaving yourself exposed offensively. So those are the two things that I learn a lot about. Do you have fear? I do. I mean, well, every person has fear. I do not come into the job with fear.

I had enough experiences in my early career. Not everybody has got fear. Yeah. I mean, I would say that I had a lot of experiences early in my career where I had to overcome that sense of fear, you know, to kind of, how am I going to prove myself, how am I going to make sure that this is successful, that when I got the job as CEO, I felt extremely ready and in the job as CEO, you don't feel fear. I mean, you have moments of making sure that you manage through challenging situations, but all of the experience that led up to that gets you prepared for that.

So I don't walk around with fear, but I do think that it's important. That's right. A couple of CEOs I've spoken to, you know, on these podcasts like Bob Iger at Disney and and also Michael Dell, they say that they haven't got the fear gene. Well, I can't say, I would say that I have a healthy fear gene, but the most important thing you can do is train yourself to overcome it. Yeah. Now, how do you relax apart from kickboxing? Well, my husband, his profession is he's a pottery instructor. He was a lawyer for a long time and then had a second career as a pottery instructor.

So he has taught me potteries, which is very meditative. Do you throw? Do you go like a wheel at home? Like a throwing wheel? We do. So we have a small studio at home. Nice. We go on Saturdays and we'll throw pots and he

teaches me. He's very good and I'm very bad. But it's a very relaxing way for us to spend time together. We also play a lot of pickleball and we play that competitively so we have a good time with that. Very good. Now finally we got tens of thousands of young people listening to this. What is your advice to them? I would say first, always stay curious. Always make sure that when you have the opportunity to say yes, you say yes. Early in my career, I was asked to do a lot of things that were outside the scope of my job.

And I would always just say, OK, I'll do that. And then you go back to your office, and you go, I wonder how I'm going to do that. But you have to figure it out. And that's the great thing. If someone's trusting you to give you that projects, they think that you're going to figure it out, so take it. Now, if you say yes to too many things,

then you need to sit down and say, how do I prioritize these things? But the fact of the matter is, say yes and stay curious. Well, Alina, you for sure have figured out NASDAQ. Well done and congratulations. Thank you very much. It's great to spend time with you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Alina, you for sure have figured out Nasdaq. Well done and congratulations. Thank you very much. It's great to spend time with you.