Adena Friedman, CEO of NASDAQ, details her 32-year tenure from intern to leader, managing a platform listing 4,000 companies and 75% of annual IPOs. She balances early motherhood with rigorous strategy sessions, emphasizing financial literacy for families while championing AI's transformative potential despite market volatility. Through personal anecdotes like her 5:30 a.m. workouts and pivotal auction launches, Friedman argues that humanity must prioritize lunar exploration before venturing to Mars, framing her career as a testament to integrating family life with global capital market innovation. [Automatically generated summary]
You know, careers are 40 years long, but there is a point at which you're no longer going to be working.
Thinking about what the rest of your life is going to look like and having a financial understanding of what's to come and what do you need to sacrifice now in order to have opportunity in the future, I think is going to be, it's a really, really big part of being a successful parent and also being a successful person in life.
So having that understanding is empowerment.
Like I definitely had moments in my, especially when the kids are young.
It's hard to handle it all.
You do have to kind of realize that your priority when you're not working, your priority is your family.
And that I took very seriously.
What is your strategy in order to create the performance that you're seeking?
We actually have a very specific strategic process that we go through and we go through it every year.
And we start by saying, what are the technology trends that are going to define our industry over the next 10 years?
So we really try to think far out.
What are the industry trends that are going to define our clients' experience over the next 10 years?
And what are we great at?
What could we be better at?
and where is our right to win?
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Katie Miller Podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
Again, we air every Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern.
Today I'm in New York City, joined by Adina Friedman, the CEO of NASDAQ.
Thank you so much for joining.
It's great to be here.
Thanks for joining me here at the market site.
It's a crazy week here in New York with UN.
Just so everyone knows, the traffic is absolutely insane.
But to just start off, would you mind giving everyone a brief 30 seconds of who you are and what is the NASDAQ for everyone who does not even know what markets are?
Sure.
Okay, well I'm Adina Friedman.
I'm the CEO of NASDAQ.
And NASDAQ today is a technology company that serves the global capital markets and we do many things beyond markets, but of course we have the NASDAQ stock market as our foundation.
And the NASDAQ stock market is a market that brings companies into to raise capital and then we trade those and allow investors to own basically a piece of every company in the United States that comes public.
We are the home to the largest companies in the world here at NASDAQ.
We're really, really proud of that.
But we have 4,000 companies that have chosen to list on NASDAQ.
We have about 75% of any all new companies in a given year who come public come public on NASDAQ.
So really, really proud of that.
How long have you been at NASDAQ?
I started at NASDAQ 32 years ago as an intern coming out of business school and I kind of took three years away but otherwise I've been at NASDAQ my whole career.
And you're a mom of how many kids again?
I have two boys.
Now they're grown now.
So I kind of had children.
My older son was born when I was 26, the younger one when I was 28.
So of course I've been here 32 years, which means my children are grown up now.
So when you had kids earlier in your career, but what was that like, you know, putting in the long hours, especially early in your career when you're expected to put in long hours and still raising children at the same time?
Yeah.
Well I was fortunate that I had two years of working at NASDAQ before my first son was born.
And so I had at least a chance to establish my credibility and really work those really long hours for the first two years.
And then my manager, I had the same manager for the first seven years at NASDAQ and he was amazing, really incredible.
So when I went into his office the day I told him I was pregnant, he's like, okay, let's figure this out.
You know, it wasn't like, oh gosh.
It was like, oh, we'll figure this out.
And I was, you know, you always get a little nervous having to have that conversation, but it really went really well.
And he was willing to give me some time after the kids were born to work part-time for a couple years, but still actually promoted me in the process of doing that.
And my husband and I also had a very early conversation right when we found out that we were pregnant.
This is going to be a partnership.
We're going to figure this out together.
He took on responsibility.
I took on responsibility and it really made it so that it was doable.
I think now in today, right, you see with Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift is that they're getting engaged at the end of what is their adult careers, I want to say, right?
Where you've kind of reached this peak, I would say even of mid-30s, right?
So like I don't want to say they're the peak, but in their minds, right, like the culmination of everything she's done and he's done, which very successful careers, now they're getting engaged in starting a family versus you kind of were at the beginning.
Do you think there is a benefit to starting the family younger and what kind of went into your calculus to do that?
I do actually think that I was fortunate to have the kids younger in my career.
I mean everyone's different, right?
Everyone's got a different career arc as you're pointing out.
Maybe they'll actually have more time now than they did when they were younger in their career.
But for me, I found that having kids and having to figure out how to navigate my career with kids throughout my career was a better path for me.
Because essentially after two years, my husband and I had to figure it out for the rest of our time as people in our career.
So it just, you kind of, it becomes part of the natural cadence.
And if suddenly in the middle of your career, you suddenly have a huge life event that happens and you become a parent, it can be more disruptive, I think, in the mid to later career.
But that's my personal, you know, that's my, based on my own personal experience.
Right, right.
I've heard someone else will give you all the reasons why it's better to do it later.
But, you know, I also came to the view, well, I'm only getting two weeks off a year, so it's not like I could go travel the world anytime I want.
We weren't at that point, we didn't, you know, we weren't making tons of money at that point.
So it was like, you know, it's not like we were foregoing a lot of other opportunities in our lives.
We were working hard.
And so let's have the family and let's have it be a part of our lives from the very start.
But that actually was part of the conversation we had was now's as good a time as any kind of thing.
When you speak in your role as a CEO to other women who work at NASDAQ, what is your, like I'm sure other women come to you for guidance, whether that be on families or the future path of their career.
Do you find that more women now are starting their families younger or is it now still trending older is what you're seeing?
I mean I think that the statistics show that it's trending older.
And I probably would say anecdotally that's probably the experience I've seen.
But I do get a lot of questions about that.
And I actually really enjoyed those conversations because I felt pretty alone when I had kids young.
I didn't have a lot of female counterparts at the office.
And so I was figuring it out.
My husband and I were figuring out together.
But it was, I felt like there was a lot of things I was trying to figure out by myself.
And so I'm actually very happy to have that conversation with younger women as they're trying to figure out how do they create the balance.
How do they have the right conversation with their partner?
How do they think about their career trajectory?
Reminding them that careers are 40 years long.
You know, you don't have to accomplish everything in two years.
You can think about how to create a little bit more balance for a while and then go right back in.
But the one thing that I'm always sad is when I see a great woman who's got this great career in front of her say, it's just too much.
I have to kind of concentrate on one thing or the other.
And obviously if they're going to have a child, they're going to concentrate on their family.
So that has always makes me a little bit sad because I think that means that they probably felt very alone.
They may not have talked to their manager about what was possible and how they might want to think differently for a little while about their career and then come back into a heart-charging job a little bit later or things like that that could make it so that they can navigate it successfully.
Because it's a different choice and I think for some women being a mom is their ultimate job, right?
And that's all they're excited to do is I want to have a kid, I'd like to quit my career and now it's time for me to go home.
Right.
Versus I think the woman you're describing is the one who wishes she could still remain in the workplace but can't figure out that balance.
That's exactly right.
I do know women who've decided that this is like the most exciting thing that has ever happened to them and they really are excited to dedicate their time to their families and I have total respect for that.
I really do.
It's different than someone saying, I just can't handle it all.
And I understand that.
I definitely had moments in my, especially when the kids are young, it's hard to handle it all.
It really is.
Well, when I was younger in my career, I wasn't commuting nearly as much, but I was coming up to New York occasionally.
I commute now, you know, all the time.
But when the kids were younger, it was always hard.
Like when I did have to go to New York, I think at one point my son was, I think, two.
I was trying to remember if he's like one and a half or two, and I had to go to New York, and he knew he didn't want me to leave.
So his way of telling me he didn't want me to leave was he hid my phone in the closet.
And he said, well, you can't leave if you don't have your phone, right?
So, you know, so kids do know how to pull on those heartstrings very successfully.
Did you stay home?
No.
Because at the same time, you also have to realize that when I am home, I'm very present with the kids, or I was very present with the kids.
But they also, you know, gained independence from the fact that I wasn't there every minute of the day, but when I was there, I was very much there.
That's the key, though, is you do have to kind of realize that your priority, when you're not working, your priority is your family.
And that I took very seriously.
So there's two questions I'll take off of that.
One, what is the actual work-life balance?
Because I know what everyone's idealic work-life balance is, right?
Is that work is work and hometime is hometime, I think, as you just alluded to, right?
But this is markets.
Things happen overnight, and things sometimes require attention.
And I know I fall short, even at home, of saying, I'm going to stop and be with my children and read bedtime story, but then your phone is sitting there buzzing.
Yeah.
And so how does that actually work in real life about the days that work and the days where we're like it?
Could have done better today.
I think I, well, first of all, you have to give yourself a break, right?
Perfection's impossible.
And just remind yourself that perfection is impossible.
I also remember feeling very guilty when the kids were young.
I either felt like I wasn't committing enough to work or I wasn't committing enough to home.
And that guilt can be very weighty.
And so I remember later in my career, this woman came to talk to all the female executives at a firm I was working in.
And she said, never feel guilty for working and being a mom.
And she gave lots of reasons why.
And I was like, wow, I wish I'd heard that when I was younger in my career.
Because I think you just have to give yourself a little bit of grace and say, I'm working as hard as I can at both jobs.
They're both very important jobs.
And how do I make sure that in the moment that I can be present, I'm always very present.
And then when there are things like emergencies that come up, my husband and I would talk to each other about those.
Like he would say, okay, I'm coming in.
Come on in.
And there were times when he did drop off.
I did pick up because we did daycare.
And sometimes I had to stay at work late.
And so he would say, yep, I got it.
And sometimes he'd have to go work early.
Yep, I got it.
So we made it work for each other.
I do think that partnership was really important.
I am curious, though, from when you started in your career to now, I would say there's way more women empowerment or women in business forums and groups.
Given that you are a female CEO and I don't think there's as many of you as there are as your male counterparts, do you think segregating women out as a group who needs to be observed and promoted or have a special thing is actually that helpful given, and I struggle with this, so I'm not trying to ask anything that I haven't thought about and given that you sit in a unique role as being there when there weren't as many women and now I think there's more than less.
So I would first start by saying NASDAQ is a performance culture and we've always been a performance culture.
End of the day, if you're in a role, you have to perform in your role, and that's that is the best way to get the opportunity for the next role, and so I just want to say that that's so important.
But you also can create a culture of respect and a culture of feeling like I can, in fact, ask for help.
I can.
People can understand that I might be dealing with a situation outside of work that I need to need some help with, and have your colleagues come in and say okay, let's figure this out together, so that you don't feel alone and having to navigate those moments which I think a lot of women felt very alone in navigating those moments 20 to 30 years ago.
And so that culture of saying okay, let's figure this out, as opposed to well, I guess you're not doing your job today.
You know it's just, it's a different, it's a different orientation, it's a different way of thinking about that team, and I think if you can create that culture and I think we have it here at NASDAQ then you giving everyone an opportunity to advance themselves and you know everyone and the men and the women all working together to make it so that the team is served, the clients are served, the company is served properly.
Now, at the end of the day, you also then have to be the one who leans in when your colleague has a challenge at home or outside work, and it, you know it's give and take all the time.
There aren't many women, I think, in finance right compared, I mean, I would say there's more now than there previously were.
But, by you know, pop culture would tell you that they're looking for the six foot blue-eyed man in finance.
Right, I'm looking for a man in finance trust fun, six eyes.
And it's not like I'd like the brunette woman with the pretty eyes.
Right, maybe they would, but but you grew up with a, a family culture in finance, right.
Breaking Finance Stereotypes00:13:51
And so how would you talk to a mom who's at home, who maybe doesn't do her family's bills, who doesn't log into their bank account regularly, who doesn't, you know, who knows what the NASDAQ is, or who sees the bell ringing but doesn't actually understand what a market is, what a put is, why we're buying and selling and trading, what is?
How would you do the brief introduction to the mom to say, get involved, get off the you know, not get off the couch but, you know, take an interest in your, your finances.
Well, I personally feel like having an understanding of your, the finances in your life, gives you the freedom you know it's kind of.
It helps you understand what your priorities need to be, what your opportunities might be, and also thinking about the future, like what planning for your future, planning for your children's future?
I mean that's so important to have an understanding of the plan.
And again, you know, careers are 40 years long, but there is a point at which you're no longer going to be working.
So thinking about what the rest of your life is going to look like and having a financial understanding of what's to come and what do you need to sacrifice now in order to have opportunity in the future, I think is going to be it's a really, really big part of being a successful parent and also being a successful you know person in life.
So having that understanding is is empowerment, and that I think that's important.
So there are a lot of resources available, lots and lots of resources.
So there's a site that I like to, I had, I worked on with my child, actually.
He was interested in understanding finances.
He wanted to invest in stocks when he was like a teenager.
And I said, okay, well, let's go to Investopedia.
Because Investopedia has like a stock market game where you're investing fake money.
And it helps you understand the basics of what you're supposed to look at in terms of financial statements.
And how do you read a financial statement?
What does it mean to anything?
What is an equity?
What is a bond?
And that, I think, was really great at giving the basics.
And then, of course, there are so many different retail brokerage firms now that offer a whole range of financial literacy.
There are programs out there to focus on how do we appeal to women, how do we appeal to people from different backgrounds to get them engaged and make them feel like they can understand it, they can engage in it, they can relate to it.
So there's a lot of resources out there today that get people engaged in the markets, but also just in their finances in general.
Did your financial literacy come from your family or was it school?
It was my family.
Yeah, I would not say school focused on that, which is too bad.
I actually think there's, you know, the programs like Junior Achievement and other programs.
Our foundation is completely dedicated to financial literacy and entrepreneurship.
Those are the two things that we focus on with our foundation.
So we do a lot to promote programs around financial literacy, but I would say that for me, my father was in the industry.
And so he would come home from work.
He was in the investment industry, and he would come home and we'd have dinner together every night, which was really great.
I mean, he worked hard to make it so we had dinner every night.
It might have been a little later in the day.
And we'd ask him about work and he would actually tell us.
And then I would go into the office with him when I had a day off of school and wander the halls and ask, can I be helpful?
And I would go down to the trading floor and they'd show me the Bloomberg screens.
And, you know, so I had a real, I had a really fortunate view into it.
And I thought it was really, really interesting.
So when I went to business school, I decided that I wanted to do finance, but I wanted to be a product manager in finance.
And I happened to land at NASDAQ, which is essentially a product.
I mean, if you think about it, the markets in a way are a technology product serving finance.
So I got the chance to be a product analyst right out of business school.
Did you apply online or how did you get the job?
You know, they had an internship available, but I was very fortunate in getting the only internship in the trading division.
And then I partled that into a full-time job.
So you never know if you're going to be an intern this year at the NASDAQ and the trading division where you might end up.
Well, we actually do have former interns who are now very much senior executives here at NASDAQ, multiples.
So it is definitely a path into the door here at NASDAQ.
So when you're raising your children, I want to just quickly go back to this because to me it is the most fascinating part of being a true working mother is how you've done it.
You have, I would say, two successful children, which in this day and age is not easy to do with all the outside pressure, especially with two working parents.
How did you, I want to go actually this like this, how did you navigate?
So when you were at work, you're at work, but then what were the key family values or core tenants?
You mentioned, you know, your father having dinner together, and I think your mom being quite a role model is what tools did you use to ensure, like, to raise successful children?
Because today I think is very hard to do.
Yeah, no, so it was very intentional.
You know, my husband and I really spent time really focusing on how do we make sure our children always feel supported, feel that we're there for the most important moments in their life, or even not even the most important, but important moments in their lives, that they had a lot of structure, and we'll talk about that in a second.
And that when we were present, we were really present.
And I did take that from my own family.
So my mom was a stay-at-home mom until I was nine, and she was always there.
And it was just, but she was there, but not like on top of me there.
She was just present, available.
My dad worked very hard in my early years.
And so, and we would like, my mom and my brother and I would go to baseball games and pack up the popcorn from home and sit in the bleachers and have a great time, right?
So she was very present.
But then she actually decided it was time for her to have her own opportunity.
And I have to tell you, her going back to law school, she went to law school and then became a lawyer, was a defining moment for me.
You know, to see her achieve something that was so important to her.
Her dad had been a lawyer.
And she became the first female partner in her law firm.
Wow.
And so for me to see her become this really confident career woman, expert, watch her, frankly, go through law school.
When I had a day off of school, I would go to the law school classes and sit in the back of the class.
That was really important to me to see.
And then to see my dad support her, because he suddenly had to do more at home.
And sometimes he would have to make dinner.
We would always have breakfast for dinner when he made dinner, which was awesome.
I love breakfast.
I do too.
But you know, like we had these really great bonding moments with my dad as I got older.
And so it was really very defining for me to see that.
So then with Mike and me, it was very structured.
You know, we'd make sure that we ate as many meals together as we possibly could.
When we were not working, we were home.
And we actually had that, because there are a lot of things that can distract you in your life.
And there are a lot of things I want to say yes to.
But my husband, you know, he was, he said, you know, those things are discretionary.
This is required.
You know, so we always had that conversation to make sure we were prioritizing the family when it wasn't, when work wasn't part of our, you know, when work wasn't there.
And as I got older, you know, moved up my career, by the time I was 31, I was running a business division.
And by the time I was 35, I was the head of corporate strategy here, which meant I was dealing all the MA here.
And that mergers and acquisitions, so all the deals.
And that is a very time-consuming role.
So at that point, you know, our cadence changed.
And my husband was at a law firm and he went in-house so that he could have more consistency.
And, you know, we just worked together to make sure that the kids always knew that we were there for them.
As a team.
As a team.
So now when you walk through the doors as a CEO of NASDAQ, what does your mom and dad say?
They're pretty proud.
From going from watching your mom go to law school, become the first female partner, and now here's she like watching you walk through the doors.
What was their reaction when you called them up?
They were very, very excited, I have to say.
Now, I actually brought them back one day and brought them down to the market site, and they got to stand behind the podium.
And I got pictures with them behind the podium, and I have those up on my wall in my office at home.
And I have, you know, it's really, it was a proud moment for me, actually, to be able to bring them in and have them be a part of this experience here.
We've chatted offline about your career, and to me, the most fascinating part of it is when, probably the most recent part, is when you left and then came back to be CEO.
Because oftentimes I feel like in my career, people say, oh, you need to leave in order to be promoted because sometimes people don't see the talent or see what they have until you leave.
Do you find that to be the case that when you left and learned a different skill and then came back, that you wouldn't have become, you wouldn't have become CEO without that?
I actually don't know the answer to that, I'll be honest.
I did feel very well valued here.
I just, you know, I'd been two years in the role of CFO at NASDAQ when Carlisle called.
And it was a cold call, by the way.
It was a cold call from a head hunter.
And he said, are you interested in learning more about an investment firm in Washington, D.C.?
And I loved my job.
So it wasn't like I was looking to leave.
But the fact is my family was in DC and I had started commuting every week now.
At that point a CFO, I was commuting every week to New York.
But also an investment management firm that is looking to IPO.
And I mean to be the CFO of a company and take a company public is an amazing moment for any career CFO.
So it was just one of these like all the stars aligned.
And I said, do you know that I live in Washington, D.C.?
And he said, no.
I'd be like, this is perfect.
So it was a moment when it was the right thing for me to do.
But I felt very much very well supported by the CEO, by the board.
I felt that I had a lot of opportunity here.
But this was a different one.
It was, and there was a personal side to it.
I've been at NASDAQ 17 years, and I wanted to be able to prove myself somewhere else.
I wanted to know that I had the, that I was, frankly, that my skills partly hidden somewhere else.
It was a bigger job because I was running both finance and IT for Carlisle.
And it was this great moment in their corporate journey that I got to be a part of.
And I got to learn a different part of the industry, as you mentioned.
So when I did come back, and I came back three years later, and it was not like I was looking to leave Carlisle.
But they called and they said, you have an opportunity to come back as president.
You manage this part of the company.
And if you do a great job, then you have an opportunity potentially to be my successor.
How can I say no?
And I loved being product manager, right?
I wanted to run a product and be in the financial industry.
I'd gone to become CFO.
I liked being a CFO.
I didn't love being a CFO.
I liked being a risk taker a little bit more than a risk manager.
So it was like the stars aligned again.
And my sons at that point were about to go off to college or were later in their high school years.
So it was also a good timing for me.
I would say that your career is incredibly inspiring to a lot of women, right?
To say that I can have kids, I can put in the time, I can get to the next level.
Just to keep us all humble here, what would you say is a day when you're like, things are not going right?
Or, man, I don't know if I've made the right decision.
And you're kind of kicked back on your butt.
Yeah, there are a few of those.
You know, usually they were very specific situations.
But there was one moment early in my tenure as CFO where we were trying, it was right after the credit crisis and we were raising debt to achieve something for the company.
And the debt offering just wasn't going the way it should have gone.
And I felt very responsible.
Like, I probably made the wrong choice.
I didn't, you know, I could have handled it differently.
And I remember I was just, it was like, it really kicked me in the butt, I'll be honest with you, because I'm a perfectionist.
And it was very hard for me to accept that early in my time as CFO, I chosen to do it a certain way and it wasn't the right way.
It all got done.
Like the next day, it was all fine, it got done, but that day was just a bad thing.
Pitt in your stomach kind of day.
Oh, yeah, pit in your stomach kind of day, perfect example.
And then, you know, when I did make the decision to go to Carlisle, it was the hardest decision of my career.
I wasn't, you know, I didn't, I had, I love my job.
So it was not something that it was just so obvious that this was the right next move that you do sit there and question, you know, make, but I'm just so glad I did it.
I really am.
It was a great experience.
So how involved are you in the hiring interviewing process at NASDAQ?
Well, it depends on who.
It depends on the level.
But anyone who has significant risk and responsibility at NASDAQ, I want to be involved.
What questions do you ask the applicant?
Well, I usually ask, like, I tend to be the easier interviewer.
Like, because I'm usually at the end of the process.
Like, they've already done a lot of vetting.
I'm looking at it more for, can this person work as a team?
Are they going to be results oriented?
Are they going to be forwards driven?
Are they a cultural fit?
And obviously, do they have the expertise?
But a lot of times by the time they come to me, I know they have the expertise.
It's more a matter of what are they going to bring to the group?
How are they going to make us all better?
And so I really focus my questions on that.
And so I usually ask, what's the project you're most proud of and why?
What are the things that really defined your career and why?
Those types of questions, because it's interesting to see how people answer those, right?
Hiring for Cultural Fit00:03:15
What's been the best response or the best interview and what have they done?
And then I'll flip that and say, what's the worst interview you've sat through and you're just like, oh my gosh, they could have prepared for this.
I'm sure there's got to be one and I'm sure it burns in your brain.
You know, I don't have one that burns in my brain, but yes, I definitely have had interviews where you're like, why am I sitting?
Like, they obviously haven't even read the website, you know?
So, you know, you could know how much money we made if you just looked at our top line financial results.
Like, it's pretty straightforward.
So there were a few of those.
But also, the best interviews are ones I had an interview where I just sat there and realized, I was like, this is what we've been missing.
You know, like the amount of expertise and skill and energy and positivity.
And just, I was like, wow, this is what we've been missing.
So it was a great, it was a great interview.
And that was an aha moment, I have to say.
So of those aha moments, when you go to make a substantiative change at NASDAQ and you want to go into new markets or do something where you've grown the market share and revenue of NASDAQ substantially in your tenure, what do you do you come up with those ideas like in the shower?
Is that where we're doing it?
Is it these meetings?
Is it PowerPoints?
Like what is your strategy in order to create the performance that you're seeking?
Yeah, well first it is, the shower actually is a place where I have ideas, but they're usually the smaller ones.
Not the, oh my gosh, we're going to redefine NASDAQ ones.
So we actually have a very specific strategic process that we go through and we go through it every year because our space changes really quickly.
And you can see, I mean, all the technology that are coming in with AI, tokenization, private public market phenomenon, I think those are all things that we have to navigate successfully.
So we have a process.
We usually start with a management committee meeting early in the year and we say, okay, how well have we done last year?
Do we still want to underwrite our vision, our purpose, our value proposition?
Do we still feel like it's relevant for where we're going?
How do we want to look at the next five years?
And we start by saying, what are the technology trends that are going to define our industry over the next 10 years?
So we really try to think far out.
What are the industry trends that are going to define our clients' experience over the next 10 years?
And what are we great at?
What could we be better at?
And where is our right to win?
So we always start every single year with that kind of reinterrogation.
And then we start to say, okay, how does everything fit into where we want to go?
What are our ambitions for the next five years?
And what are the new growth lanes that we want to open up for ourselves that will continue to redefine NASDAQ?
And we go from like early in March all the way up until we have the board meeting in September to really go through a very detailed process.
And we involve the management committee, which is like the top eight of us.
And then we also involve the executive leadership team, which adds another 10 people.
Are these like the really nice like retreats that you guys do?
Nope, nope.
You know, this is a beautiful retreat location, the conference room.
So while the NASDAQ market site, you know, our clients use these offices for off-site, so why don't we?
So we use our own offices.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Leadership Retreats vs Competitions00:07:21
What are you eating?
What's your workout schedule?
So I do work out every morning.
I get up around 5.30, sometimes a little earlier, but usually around 5.30.
I work out for about 45 minutes.
I'm a big Peloton user myself.
And then I always have the same breakfast, which is oatmeal, granola, and blueberries every day.
Do you make it yourself, like on the stove?
Yeah, every day.
And it's actually kind of nice.
I listen to really upbeat music because I always like to start my day in a positive mood.
And so I listen to music, I eat my oatmeal, I read the news, I read the company news, and kind of get myself ready, then shower and get to the office.
I'm usually in the office.
I mean, ideally, I'm in the office at 8.30.
Sometimes it means that I have to be in the office at 7.30 or 8, and then I'll just get up earlier so that I can have the same routine.
So two follow-ups.
What's on your playlist?
Well, I have lots of different playlists, I have to admit.
So I don't know if you know the band Need to Breathe.
I don't.
Okay.
It's a really great southern rock band.
Love their music.
It's very inspirational.
I think you'd actually really like it.
It's very inspirational music, and I love listening to that.
And so I'll do like a Need to Breathe playlist, and then it'll suggest other artists.
So I tend to listen to that.
We'll turn to our lovely game of Would You Rather?
Okay, I'm ready.
Navy.
I will preface this by saying, I've heard you're very good at Taekwondo.
I am.
You're a black belt?
Well, I don't want to say I am.
I'm a black belt at Taekwondo.
I don't know if I'm very good.
I'm a black belt at Taekwondo.
So if you could only break one thing with a Taekwondo kick for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Barriers or bad habits?
Ooh.
I would definitely pick barriers, I'll be honest.
I think you can overcome bad habits in other ways.
That takes discipline, but probably not breaking them, but barriers for sure.
Would you rather have to start every board meeting with a karaoke song or end every board meeting with a TikTok dance?
So I dance ballet, and I also sang I was in all the school plays.
Probably I'd rather dance than sing, though, as an adult coming soon to TikTok.
Would you rather manage 100 interns with unlimited questions or 10 hedge fund managers who never stop arguing?
Definitely the 10 hedge fund managers.
I mean, I love big questions, so don't get me wrong with the interns, but I always, I'm a pleaser, so like I'd want to like take on every single question and, you know, and I'm sure that they'd have ideas and I want to do everything.
Whereas the hedge fund managers, I've worked with hedge fund managers now my whole career, so if they're arguing, I can usually diffuse the situation.
Would you rather always carry around a briefcase full of Monopoly money or celebrate every quarterly win with a confetti bomb?
What was the first one?
Would you rather carry a briefcase full of monopoly money or celebrate with confetti bombs after every quarter?
Definitely confetti bombs.
I don't know if you noticed, but we have confetti downstairs.
So when we have a market open event, we kick off confetti almost every market open.
I love the confetti business.
You could do really good gender reveals here.
Oh, we definitely could.
I don't think we've ever done that before.
That would be interesting.
But yeah, so it comes.
I'll follow you up when I have my next question.
I love the idea of adding a confetti bomb to our quarterly earnings.
I think it's a great idea.
Would you rather have to play in a pickleball competition wearing full business attire, including high heels, or a giant pickle costume?
I would say I think I'd rather wear the pickle costume if my legs are free.
Like if the pickle goes all the way to the bottom of my legs, no, I'd rather wear my work clothes with my heels.
But if I'm in a competition, I want to win.
So I'd rather wear sneakers if I could.
So if I have to look like a pickle, but I have sneakers on, I think I'd choose that.
Okay, so now we're going to go to the, we'll call this the conclusion section of the lightning round.
So they're going to be a little out there for you.
I'll go with this one.
Are you a dog or a cat person?
Dog person.
Do you have any dogs?
We do.
We have a golden retriever.
She's wonderful.
What's your hidden talent?
Oh, well, I actually am able to find four leaf clovers.
And I have a hobby of finding four leaf clovers.
What TV shows are you binging right now?
So I actually am watching the show Invasion on Apple.
I really like sci-fi.
I just watched Star Wars Strange New Worlds, the new series.
I mean, Star Trek, I'm so sorry to all the Star Trek.
I'm also watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which just, it's amazing.
And then, but I also am watching Longmire, which I love detective shows, and that's a great Western kind of police show.
So I know it's very, I'm like all about, it's eclectic and it's also escapism.
Like I use television to escape reality, not to double down on it.
Do you fall asleep with the TV on at night?
No.
What's been your favorite day you've had at NASDAQ?
Favorite day actually was, I've had a lot of favorite days, but I'm going to pick one that has always stuck out in my memory and it was 20 years ago.
So it was a long time ago.
I ran a project to create the closing cross for NASDAQ, which means an auction to close the market.
And it was a very high stakes project.
It was either this was going to work or things were not going to go well for the company.
And I was a brand new CEO, first year in the job, and he gave me the project to do.
And so we launched the closing cross and it worked really well.
And then a month after we launched it, we had the biggest trading day of the year, every year, which is the Russell Rebalance.
Huge close.
And I remember standing there in our MarketWatch Center, just pins and needles, like this auction better work.
Like, you know, 10 minutes to go.
And it worked really well.
And the clients were really happy.
And we changed the market forever.
And it was honestly probably my happiest moment.
I know that sounds really esoteric, but it really was a great moment.
If you weren't in finance, what career would you have pursued?
Well, I could say what career I wanted to pursue when I was a kid.
I wanted to be an astronaut.
So maybe going into the space economy.
You can probably still do that now.
I'm going to say now that the space economy is in the private sector, it's an opportunity that didn't exist when I was a kid.
But that's...
You could do both.
Exactly.
What's been the biggest challenge in the last year?
You know, actually, I think that there's been, I mean, every year presents different challenging opportunities.
But the challenge actually is making sure that we are positioned to grow as fast as we possibly can.
Like we have a lot of growth opportunities here at NASDAQ.
And I really mean that.
Like I spend most of my time making sure we are optimizing every growth opportunity here.
And it sounds like, I mean, it's a fun challenge, but it is always a challenge to make sure we're putting capital behind the right things.
Do you think AI is overvalued?
No.
In the long run, right?
I think AI is a game-changing, world-changing technology, unlike anything we've ever seen, certainly in my career, and probably in our lifetime.
Pretty much in our life.
So you don't think there'll be a market correction?
I'm not saying that.
I don't try to predict markets, but I would say that technology itself has a utility that is so massive, so vast.
We don't know the use case.
And that we just don't even understand what its potential is yet, that it is something that over the coming years and decades will redefine many industries.
So we'll end with this.
We've ended this on every single podcast interview I've done.
Trailblazers and Thanksgiving00:01:28
If you could host a dinner party with three people, dead or alive, who's coming to the table and what are you eating?
Oh, what am I eating?
Okay, so I think if I were to pick three people, I tend to like trailblazers.
So one would definitely be Abraham Lincoln, because I think he changed the country and he's a trailblazer for our country in many, multiple, many, many wonderful ways.
The second would actually be FDR.
I know that, you know, like he was a really long-standing president.
He also is a trailblazer from an economic perspective.
He took the country out of the Depression.
So I would definitely ask him how did he do that?
And how did he have the fortitude to make some big decisions?
And obviously, he navigated us through World War II, which is a defining moment in our history.
And then honestly, the third person would be Sally Ride, because she was the first female astronaut to go into space.
And when I was a kid, I remember her going to space and I thought she was the coolest woman ever and she was a trailblazer for sure for women.
So those would be the three very different conversations.
What we'd have for dinner though, honestly, I would basically make a Thanksgiving dinner because it's the one dinner where I make the entire dinner.
Thanksgiving is my day of cooking, so I would make Thanksgiving dinner.
Are you team moon or Mars?
Should we go to first?
We have to go to the moon before we can go to Mars.
So I'd say the moon.
Let's go to the moon.
Thank you so much for doing this.
And thank you everyone for watching this episode of the Katie Miller podcast.
As a reminder, please remember to like, subscribe, and follow.
We're available every Monday night, 6 p.m. everywhere you get your podcasts.