You can't blame Adena Friedman for sounding upbeat. She's made some big strategic bets since being named CEO of Nasdaq in 2017 and they appear to be paying off in spades.
Once a business that relied on cyclical, commoditized exchange revenue, Nasdaq has transformed under Friedman's leadership into a technology company on the leading edge of tokenization, AI deployment and helping banks fight financial crime. Fully 77% of the company's revenues now are recurring.
She's done that while continuing to grow an exchange business that is the largest in the world by volume and is winning key mandates, including the landmark $86 billion listing of Elon Musk's SpaceX, the largest IPO in history, in June.
In December, the exchange will launch 23/5 trading, a steppingstone to 24/7 markets. The pace of innovation and sense of momentum are palpable.
"The thing I'm really excited about is that every engine in Nasdaq is performing extremely well and growing nicely," Friedman says.
The metrics bear her assessment out. Nasdaq's net income jumped 23% in 2025 to $2 billion. The IPO business raised $24 billion in capital during the year, while its anti-crime and regulatory technology offerings attracted 291 new, mostly bank, clients. The first half of 2026 was more of the same.
Friedman interned with Nasdaq in college and, with the exception of a three-year interlude with Carlyle Group, has been there her whole work life. She thinks of Nasdaq as a gathering place for financial players, matching their capital with ideas.
Friedman says she had a vision dating back to the 1990s of providing technology solutions to those same clients. When she acquired anti-financial crime firm Verafin and regulatory technology provider Adenza earlier this decade, some observers were skeptical. Now the deals are widely seen as winners, her vision validated.
Friedman "is viewed as someone who has overseen a successful pivot to a more diversified, recurring revenue model," says Piper Sandler analyst Patrick Moley. "Her acquisitions have been successful. What she buys is strategically coherent and makes sense, and they execute."
As with many software solutions providers, a key challenge today is managing the threats and opportunities of AI. Friedman has embraced the task with energy, conducting quarterly AI reviews for all business lines and running regular "innovation forums" for executives leading important AI initiatives.
The forums "provide an opportunity for Adena to put her fingerprints on what's happening with AI in every corner of the company and move things in a constructive direction," says Jeremy Skule, Nasdaq's chief strategy officer.
"AI is a passion for her," Skule adds. "She understands it, I would argue, better than most CEOs on the planet."
For Friedman, embracing AI to power "always-on" trading and protect clients against financial crime is the next step in Nasdaq's ongoing evolution. "Bad actors are leveraging AI," she says. "As defenders, we have to be better than them."
Given her vision and track record, the bad guys had better watch out.
