Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, on the Red-Hot Market and Critics of Her Diversity Plan

Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, on the Red-Hot Market and Critics of Her Diversity Plan

(Miss this week's The Leadership Brief? This interview below was delivered to the inbox of Leadership Brief subscribers on Sunday morning, Dec. 13; to receive weekly emails of conversations with the world's top CEOs and business decisionmakers, click here.)



Last week was pretty typical for Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman in 2020. Another record-high close. Another buzzy multibillion-dollar IPO (on Dec. 10, Airbnb's stock doubled on its first day of trading, valuing the company at $100 billion, the latest sign of the market's animal spirits). Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal attacked Friedman's proposal to increase board diversity on Nasdaq-listed companies. And the FTC and many state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit seeking to break up Facebook, alleging anti-competitive behavior. Facebook is one of the five FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) stocks that all trade on Nasdaq and that have powered much of the market's somewhat perplexing rise in 2020, in a year where pandemic shutdowns battered the real economy and more than 10 million Americans are out of work.











Nasdaq has come to symbolize 2020-style inequality. The perception: while those with means to invest grow richer, others devastated by COVID-19's destruction are