WEBVTT

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Always have an outside-in mindset.

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Complacency
is the killer of every great company.

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The moment you become complacent,
hubris starts to set in, and that's

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when you start to decline.

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Good morning, Christoph.

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Adena, it's great to see you. It's
great to have you here.

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Thanks for joining us.

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It is so great to be at NASDAQ
headquarters.

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The atmosphere is just electric.

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We are right on Times Square.

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There are several client events happening.

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There's music.
There's just so much energy.

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Is it always like this?

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It is very consistently like this.

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It's one of my favorite things
about being here.

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It's just hugely energizing.

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It's infectious. I love it. So great.
Thank you.

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Now, Nasdaq is such an iconic company,
an iconic brand in the financial world.

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Tell us something about Nasdaq
that people do not know.

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We are a great market operator
and we're really,

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really proud of that foundation
as we've grown and expanded our business.

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So we've really focused on
how do we partner with our clients

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to be a great provider of technology
solutions that help them

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navigate the markets more effectively
and really bring as much integrity,

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liquidity and transparency
into the industry as possible.

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And those are the foundations
of being a market.

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But now as a software provider and a truly
scale software provider to the industry,

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we really have followed those three key
themes as we've expanded our presence.

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We both started our careers
at our companies as summer interns

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in the nineties.

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Then we joined permanently
and we've become CEOs.

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There's no success without challenge.

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Tell us about a moment of truth
that you had to navigate as a leader.

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One of the things that we really have
focused

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on during my tenure
as CEO is modernizing markets.

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The moment of truth for us

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was the decision to move our market
infrastructure technology to cloud.

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That was a very big decision
for our company,

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but also recognizing that we don't just
provide technology for our own markets,

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but we provide technology
for 130 other markets around the world.

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So to make a determination to rewrite
the entire trade lifecycle technology

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cloud and to move our markets to
the cloud was a huge moment of truth

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for our organization.

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It's harder

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to transform a successful company
than it is to turn around a failing one.

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You had been in role
for a number of years.

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Everything was going perfectly fine
and you came to your team

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and pitched this idea
of a big kind of move into the cloud.

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How did your team react?

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The first thing is
you've got to get the employees on board

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and you've got to get them believing
the future.

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They've got to understand
that technology is an unstoppable force.

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Cloud is the future of technology, and
it will underpin everything in the future.

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So therefore, if we don't start
moving, we will fall behind.

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You've got to kind of create
that sense of urgency.

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The second is
then you have to educate them,

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make sure they understand
the technology deeply so that they start

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to gain experience with it
and they're not afraid of it.

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The third thing is
then they have to be able to talk about it

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with an educated voice, and then you start
going out and talking to clients.

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Yeah, it was super interesting

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to see how quickly the mindset shifted
once they realized what was possible.

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And did you have your moment as a leader
where you thought, Well,

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'I'm not sure this is moving
at the right pace.

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I'm not sure people are really fully
aligned behind the vision.

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I'm not sure I have the right talent
to get this done.'

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I'm sure they must have seen some bumps.
yeah.

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All of those things.

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So, first of all,

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as you know, with CEOs,
nothing ever moves fast enough.

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Putting those plans in place
and being very structured

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About how everything was going to be built.

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We had biweekly meetings
internally with the core team

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and then we actually had monthly meetings
with a broader set of people,

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about 100 people,

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to kind of bring them along

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the educational curve--
to show them and showcase new capabilities

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we were building to actually teach them
tech, the technology that underpins it.

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All of those things were super important
to gaining the confidence of the team,

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gaining my confidence
that this is actually moving all of that

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in the right direction.

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And absolutely we had naysayers
along the way. Absolutely.

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So you have to listen very carefully
to those naysayers.

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They probably bring some credible elements
to their arguments,

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but you can't let that be the reason
why it doesn't progress.

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So all of that was underneath
the surface of it.

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Take me to the moment
where you flipped the switch.

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So there were actually two moments that we
really, really defined the strategy.

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One was when I stood up
in front of tens of thousands of people at

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Reinvent and announced that we were going
to be moving our first market

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to cloud in 12 months.

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That was a moment of truth because

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I had to basically put ourselves out there
and I had the technology team

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that was going to be building it
literally in the front,

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watching, clapping, cheering,
which was amazing,

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because then they were there along with me
as I was announcing this to the world.

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The second moment of truth,
of course, was the day

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the market went live,
and it was one of our options markets.

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We actually generate billions of messages
a day in each of our options markets.

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So to see it operate
so flawlessly, in fact,

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with improved latency
was just an a great moment of truth.

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Usually Nasdaq and basically every
big tech company is listed on NASDAQ.

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And talk about AI and GenAI as the big next
wave of stuff that's coming.

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How do you feel about that outlook
and what's coming next for Nasdaq?

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Every single year since I became CEO, we're
reunderwriting those technologies

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that we believe

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will be truly foundational and formational toward,
the future of our industry.

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But GenAI came onto the scene superfast

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and it was amazing at how it just captured
the imagination of everyone.

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And we are kind of on that offensive track
now because of the technology coming in.

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But our data was already
in a very modern state

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and it's also accelerated
our conversations

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with our tech clients,
certainly as they realize

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that the future of technology
is unlocking the power of their data,

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how do they make sure that their positioned
To be able to do that?

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And it's
completely accelerating our conversations

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on moving their markets
to cloud infrastructure.

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And as I speak with many CEOs around
the world, we are at an all time peak

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in terms of how many of them say that
technology questions in AI and GENAI

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are kind of their moment of truth.

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They know it's going to be
a fundamental change for their industry

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and for their business,
but then they struggle how to tackle it.

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So I do think we are at the highest index
that we've ever had.

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You have successfully steered through that
with the big cloud

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transformation for Nasdaq.

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How has that shaped you as a leader
and what are some takeaways and wisdom

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you could share?

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Well, I think, first of all, as a CEO, you

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sometimes can have a vision
and you see where you want to go.

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But at the end of the day,
the most important thing you can do

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is take a little time upfront
to bring the core team along with you.

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And I've learned that actually
from some of the people who work for me.

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We have one incredible leader
inside of Nasdaq

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who takes a little more time
upfront to really overcommunicate.

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What change is coming,
why we're doing it, all the things

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that really kind of underpin the decision.

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Because once you get everyone on board,
you've run a lot faster.

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So I think that that's a key
part of gaining that internal momentum

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is by making sure
that you explain why you're doing things,

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make sure you educate them
on the technology so they can live

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and breathe it and make it
so that they get as excited as you are

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to take the journey.
Because you want to make sure

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that you're doing it
in a way that still mitigates risk.

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So that was,
I would say, the biggest lesson.

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The second thing is having
an internal mechanism for educating

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and keeping the right people
in the right seats.

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You know, if you're a growth company,
it's a natural attractor of talent.

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So if you can kind of create that
growth mindset and get the momentum going,

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it actually becomes
self-fulfilling over time.

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And then the third thing is always
have an outside-in mindset.

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The moment you become complacent,

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hubris starts to set in
and that's when you start to decline.

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And we have to transform them all the time
to be durable, lasting companies.

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So that need to be always
on the forefront of what's next.

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Bringing that outside-in perspective
is critical in that process.

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Making sure you never get overly

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comfortable and confident
in your capabilities is actually

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a quintessential part of Nasdaq.

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We were born as a disruptor.

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And we want to continue

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to take that culture and live and breathe
that each and every day.

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Well, wonderful.

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And it is so energizing to be here

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At Nasdaq headquarters.

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It is even more inspiring
to hear from you.

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And thank you so much for your time.

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Thanks, Christoph. It was great talking to you today.