Electronic stock quotes and trading methods were building blocks of Nasdaq as early as the 1970s. Today the global exchange operator prides itself on its technology, something it has in common with stalwarts like Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Microsoft that are listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Senior management has the pedigree. Chair Robert Greifeld, before serving as CEO from 2003 through 2016, was a financial technology entrepreneur and a senior executive of SunGard Data Systems. Adena Friedman, who started as an intern in 1993 and has had a hand in many of Nasdaq's growth initiatives and acquisitions, took over as CEO in January. In chief information officer Bradley Peterson, the company has leading- and bleeding-edge street cred.
A former CIO at eBay and Charles Schwab Corp. who took the executive vice president–level post at Nasdaq in 2013, Peterson regularly visits Silicon Valley, where he has a home and maintains close ties with the venture capitalists of Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and other firms that open doors to emerging technology and innovation. A technological engine in itself, Nasdaq has development centers in Boston, New York, Denver, the San Francisco area; Sydney; Bangalore, India; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Stockholm. "From an operational standpoint, we can follow the sun," keeping R&D teams operating around the clock, Peterson, 57, explains. "And we can tap into innovation," which likewise is well dispersed around the globe.
A measurable, bottom-line impact is Nasdaq Market Technology, a business unit headed by EVP Lars Ottersgård, which has supplied systems to more than 85 marketplaces in 50 countries. It accounted for $275 million of Nasdaq's $2.3 billion in total revenue last year and expanded relationships with the likes of the Australian Securities Exchange, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, and Switzerland's SIX Group. Meanwhile, Nasdaq unveiled a new modular architecture, the Financial Framework, to make it easier to add components and take advantage of blockchain, machine learning, and other advances. Nasdaq is in the forefront of financial industry experimentation with blockchain. Its San Francisco–based partner, Chain, has been integrated into the Financial Framework, and Peterson says, "We are open and agnostic with respect to Ethereum, Hyperledger, and other frameworks that emerge." Nasdaq has worked with its Tallinn exchange and the government of Estonia to record electronic proxy votes securely on the blockchain.
 2. Chris Isaacson Bats Global Markets  3. Bradley Peterson Nasdaq  4. Brad Levy MarkitSERV  5. Dan Keegan Citi |
 6. Glenn Lesko Bloomberg Tradebook  7. Bryan Durkin CME Group  8. Mayur Kapani Intercontinental Exchange  9. Mike Blum KCG Holdings  10. Raj Mahajan Goldman Sachs Group |
 11. Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional  12. Nick Themelis MarketAxess Holdings  13. Jenny Knott NEX Optimisation  14. Billy Hult Tradeweb Markets  15. Rob Park IEX Group |
 16. Bill Chow & Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing  17. John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT  18. Paul Hamill Citadel Securities  19. Eric Noll Convergex  20. Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology |
 21. Tyler Moeller & Joshua Walsky Broadway Technology  22. Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange  23. Gaurav Suri Arcesium  24. Manoj Narang Mana Partners  25. Michael Chin & Neill Penney Thomson Reuters |
 26. Robert Sloan S3 Partners  27. Anton Katz & Stephen Mock AQR Capital Management  28. Donal Byrne Corvil  29. Stu Taylor Algomi  30. Alfred Eskandar Portware |
 31. Steven Randich Financial Industry Regulatory Authority  32. R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group  33. Peter Maragos Dash Financial  34. John Fawcett Quantopian  35. Donald Ross III PDQ Enterprises |
 36. Jennifer Nayar Vela Trading Technologies  37. Dan Raju Tradier  38. Susan Estes OpenDoor Trading  39. David Mercer LMAX Exchange  40. Oki Matsumoto Monex Group |
