The 45-year-old veteran trading technology executive took up his post in May, just in time for Nasdaq’s archrival, the New York Stock Exchange, to find itself in hot water over thenBig Board chief Dick Grasso’s nearly $190 million pay package and allegations that floor specialists were trading in front of customers.
Charged with reinvigorating the slumping Nasdaq, Greifeld is not about to let his rival’s troubles pass unnoticed. Late last month the new CEO seemed to be everywhere, criticizing the NYSE’s approach to regulation and trading in testimony before Congress as well as in speeches to the National Press Club and a Pace University confab on market structure.
“We’re of the belief that [exchanges’ regulatory and business functions] cannot be of one entity and that separation by walls will not work over the long term,” Greifeld said at the Pace gathering, linking by implication the NYSE’s self-regulatory structure with lax enforcement. “When you think about what we have put the individual investor through in the past two years, it’s really astounding.”
