< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

After three years as chief financial officer of private equity firm Carlyle Group, Adena Friedman came home to Nasdaq OMX Group in June 2014. She started with what was then Nasdaq Stock Market as an intern in 1993. By the time she left in 2011 for Carlyle, where she oversaw its $671 million IPO the following year, Friedman had spent more than ten years on the New York–based market operator’s management team and was instrumental in closing acquisitions, including that of Sweden-based OMX, that transformed Nasdaq into a global, multiproduct exchange and technology powerhouse. “It was a great opportunity to come back to a business I’m passionate about,” says Friedman, 45, now one of two presidents reporting to CEO Robert Greifeld. (The other, Hans-Ole Jochumsen, is president of global trading and market services.) Friedman’s global capital access, technology and insights remit encompasses nontrading businesses, including listing and information services and technology solutions. Those activities accounted for 63 percent of the company’s first-quarter net revenue of $507 million. “Technology is at the heart of what we’re doing to drive growth,” says Friedman, who has a BA in political science from Williams College and an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, and whose previous Nasdaq roles included CFO and head of corporate strategy. More than 70 marketplaces in 50 countries — and one out of ten securities transactions worldwide — run on Nasdaq technology, a business that has been boosted in recent years by demand for its BWise risk management and SMARTS surveillance systems. Regarding an initiative launched in May to explore cryptocurrency developments, Friedman says, “Posttrade solutions are there to essentially mutualize risk and carry a trade from settlement to clearing. If the blockchain can take us to real-time settlement, it fundamentally changes the nature of trading.”

See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”

 
The 2015 Tech 50

1. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. Robeco Fundamental Equities: High-conviction Strategies to Target Alpha Sponsored by Robeco July 8, 2025 3. Phupinder Gill CME Group 4. Lance Uggla Markit 5. Robert Goldstein BlackRock

6. Shawn Edwards & Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg 7. R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group 8. Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures 9. Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments 10. Adena Friedman Nasdaq OMX Group

11. David Craig Thomson Reuters 12. Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings 13. Michael Spencer ICAP 14. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. 15. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing

16. Chris Concannon BATS Global Markets 17. Christopher Perretta State Street Corp. 18. Antoine Shagoury London Stock Exchange Group 19. Kevin Rhein Wells Fargo & Co. 20. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw & Co.

21. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets 22. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings 23. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings 24. Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp. 25. Frank Bisignano First Data Corp.

26. John Marcante Vanguard Group 27. Joseph Squeri Citadel 28. Lou Eccleston TMX Group 29. Claude Honegger Credit Suisse 30. Chris Corrado MSCI

31. David Gledhill DBS Bank 32. John Bates Software AG 33. Michael Cooper BT Radianz 34. Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group 35. Sunil Hirani trueEX Group

36. Hauke Stars Deutsche BÖrse 37. Brian Conlon First Derivatives 38. Jim Minnick eVestment 39. Lars Seier Christensen & Kim Fournais 40. Tyler Kim MaplesFS

41. Jim McGuire Charles Schwab Corp. 42. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix 43. Sebastián Ceria Axioma 44. Yasuki Okai NRI Holdings America 45. Stephane Dubois Xignite

46. Mazy Dar OpenFin 47. Brian Sentance Xenomorph Software 48. Mas Nakachi OpenGamma 49. John Lehner BNY Mellon Technology Solutions Group 50. Jock Percy Perseus