The 2015 Tech 50: Adena Friedman

2015-07-jeffrey-kutler-tech-50-adena-friedman-small.jpg

< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

10
Adena Friedman
President, Global Capital Access, Technology & Insights
Nasdaq OMX Group
PNR

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