How Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman Beat the Odds on Wall Street

What drew you to Wall Street?

In business school I really liked product management. As a product manager, you have to own the four P’s of marketing — product, placement, pricing and promotion. If you own the product, it’s like being the C.E.O. of your own little company. I didn’t think that I would be that excited to do that for consumer goods, but I would love to be able to do that for financial products. So I went to Nasdaq.

You joined Nasdaq in 1993. What was it like being a woman on Wall Street back then?

There were not a lot of women in the office. But the man I worked for saw me as someone who was an M.B.A. grad. He would give me something to do, and I would go do it, and I would do it well. He never once made me feel at all different or disadvantaged by being a woman. I just got stuff done.

When I got my first promotion I was actually pregnant. For him it was like: “Oh, that’s fine. You’ll be gone for three months, and you’ll come back.” He really just didn’t even factor it into his decision making.

“No more mousy voice. Get in the room and speak at the same tone as everyone else, and I can assure you your voice will be heard.”

— Adena Friedman

What advice do you give to women who feel like they aren’t receiving equal treatment?

First of all, make sure you have a voice. I had this one woman that worked for me, and every time she had an idea she would whisper it into the room. So I took her aside, and I said: “Speak up. You are really, really smart. No more mousy voice. Get in the room and speak at the same tone as everyone else, and I can assure you your voice will be heard.”

Next time she had an opinion, she spoke up, and everyone was like, “Wow, that’s a really good idea.” Then she was empowered to do it again and again.

And still, some women may face discrimination. What then?

If you really don’t feel you’re getting the opportunities that you should be getting, maybe you should look for a different place to work or a different person to work for. Then, of course, if you really feel like you’re not being treated properly, as a person, there should be many means for women to be able to voice that concern, to H.R., to legal.

When you rejoined Nasdaq after a stint at the Carlyle Group, you went from being a C.F.O. to being the C.E.O. Was that a difficult transition?

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