Hi, great to have you here today, Aduna. As the CEO of NASDAQ, you must have some really, really unique insights into companies. No pressure. No, it's great to be here. So, we've just heard about what makes the best companies. So, do you want to start by telling us what makes NASDAQ great company?

Well, thank you for that. Um, so, well, I always think about it from the eyes of the investor and of course that ultimately res, you know, results in the financial performance of the company. So just a quick recap of our finances over the last year. So we've grown about 10% in the last year. We have a 57% IBIDA margin. So that if we were a SAS company, we'd be a rule of 67, which is pretty good. And 102% cash flow conversion in our business. So it's a very cash flow generative business. And all of that, I think, allows um us to have the latitude to continue to grow and expand the business because we're delivering great performance.

But when we say, well, what really underpins that? like what results what how do we drive those kind of results? The first thing is that we really focus on having a very very strong northstar that really guides all of our strategic decision-m and our northstar is our purpose really which is quite big and broad is to empower economic progress around the world which is a very big and broad a broad purpose but our northstar is our vision and our vision is to be the trusted fabric to the world's financial system and when we talk about that we look at that really through the lens of technology how do we make sure that our markets are as technologically advanced as possible.

How do we provide leading software that really allows for us to help the the industry manage risk and really maximize our opportunity in the markets along three key vectors of liquidity, transparency, and integrity?

And then how do we also make sure that inside the company um we're we're staying humble and confident at the same time. So we talk a lot about that kind of what we call humble confidence or I think it's it's important to recognize that there's so much to learn all the time. The minute a company becomes complacent is the minute they begin to decline. And it's particularly in this world of technological transformation that is changing really every industry every part of what we can be. We can use technology differently to drive our business forward. You have to be a constant learner. You have to make sure that you're always bringing new capabilities into your organization and you're pushing to be better all the time. And I think that with that northstar and that humble confidence, I think that's really what we see as being the underpinnings of what what we're trying to achieve as a great company.

Yeah. And the point about learning is really important. And you've learned a lot. You've been in NASDAQ for a long time. You started as an intern back in the days and you've had a quite a remarkable journey to CEO. So can you tell us what learnings have you made along the way and uh how has NASDAQ transformed under your leadership?

Well, NASDAQ really was quite different when I started 32 years ago. So um and you were kind not to tell people how long that would been. Uh um but yeah, I I did start in the trading division at NASDAQ and at the time, you know, we were of course then a a great market, but we were still really a very young company trying to figure out how to be a commercial enterprise, how to drive markets forward in a different way.

And we've been on a journey now for for that entire period of time to really try to transform our business and to have a bigger impact in the industry. So we've gone from being a really transformative market operator within the United States um to growing and expanding into multiple asset classes with equities and options in the US expanding into Europe and we'll talk about that. We own and operate most of the exchanges in the Nordics with the exception of Ozor. Um so we we are um a very scale player here in Europe.

and then we've really expanded to um go into the software business and it started actually with the acquisition of OMX which was the Nordic operator where they had um a market technology business within their organization and it was kind of this hidden gem but it really what it did was it globalized the business and the impact that the company had on markets around the world.

So today we provide technology to 135 markets around the world. We provide technology to 3,600 banks and brokerage firms around the world in all of their key vectors of of risk management and trade operations. And so with that, I think we've become a much more scaled business, a bigger partner to the clients. And it's interesting because by helping them maximize liquidity, helping them maximize the transparency within the system and the integrity of the system, that really occurs to the benefit of markets. And so it kind of comes full circle back into us being um even more equipped to be a great market operator.

I think you're touching a bit on that, but NASDAQ, well, I think most most people still think of NASDAQ as mostly an exchange, but you do much more than that. and uh you're for example very involved in in complexity of the financial system and uh prevention of financial crime. So what why is that important?

Well at the end of the day if if we have uh integrity in the system people will trust the system and we want ultimately for investors to feel a great deal of trust when they're putting their money putting money at risk um to to drive savings and and wealth creation for themselves. So we want to make sure that the system itself works for them and we focus a lot on those three key pillars of liquidity, transparency, integrity. Those are the underpinnings of a great market but they're also the underpinnings of a great financial system.

And uh our view is that that as a market we can do so much to kind of drive that. But as a technology provider to markets, as a technology provider to the financial the financial players, it it kind of it allows us to spread those three key pillars across the system more effectively. And and frankly if we are looking at some of the emerging markets where we operate our solutions both our market our market technology and our broker dealer and uh financial uh the banking technology it allows that whole economy to lift itself up to be to be able to um be more innovative themselves drive innovation in their country drive foreign investment into their country because people trust the system more which then of course creates that positive flywheel of economic growth so it's very important but I think that at the end of the day, we'll talk more about financial crime, but it is such a big problem within the industry that it requires great technology to be able to help solve that problem and and we're really proud to be one of the technology providers to to work on that.

so it's very important but I think that at the end of the day, we'll talk more about financial crime, but it is such a big problem within the industry that it requires great technology to be able to help solve that problem and and we're really proud to be one of the technology providers to to work on that.

So, thinking a little bit about the theme of the conference and what makes great companies. So, NASDAQ lists some of the most innovative companies in the world and uh many of the biggest tech companies. So what would you say what separates a good company from a truly great one?

Yeah. Well, first I I would point to technology um companies that lean in to technology to help drive and disrupt themselves to really think differently about how to solve a problem with the technology that exists today. And then really as I said before is constantly learning and striving to be better at deploying technology to solve problems. we see as in in any sector that's not just as a technology company but leveraging technology to solve a problem differently and to drive to drive the business forward we see as definitely one of the ingredients.

The second is making sure that you operate a resilient you in a in resilient manner. Um, and it's interesting, you know, when you meet some young entrepreneurs, they they get very excited about what they're doing, but they you also have to think about what are you doing to create a resilient business. And to me, uh, as I mentioned, our cash flow conversion, you know, cash is king. So, getting to a state of profitability and cash flow, a positive cash flow state is, I think, should be the goal of every company while they're still driving growth and innovating in technology and technology now can actually be an enabler of that. You can leverage technology now to become to drive growth more efficiently to become more resilient.

and then to make sure that you have a very strong mission and a north star that you can communicate to investors that you can then talk about the milestones that you're going to take to achieve those great ambitions and that you al obviously have to execute against those. So so that investors feel trust that you're taking them on a journey that they that they can understand and they can see in front of them. but always always striving to be better um in terms of how you're solving the problems that you've decided to solve with your business.

So you you're meeting with companies be way before they choose to go public and way before they list and as they're working their way towards the public markets. uh what are there any lessons to be learned and can you can you see who will uh going to be who is going to be great and who will ultimately well a lot of it comes back to what I just said in terms of making sure that you're driving towards a really important goal making sure you're building a truly resilient company and that you're leveraging technology in every possible way to be able to achieve your vision and your mission um and but even then you know not every company is going to be able to um uh you have to recognize the fact that you also have to look at what's the total market opportunity in front of them and there are other ingredients that also go into an investment thesis like what is a total market opportunity how fast is that growing how well positioned are they how quickly can they open the doors but then lastly I would say making sure from a resiliency perspective that they're also thinking about that integrity you know sometimes you want to break something you want to break a system to make it better uh and I think that's actually frankly been the quintessential element of of a lot of technological advancements and and the innovation ecosystem that exists in the US, but you also have to reflect on are you ultimately providing a lasting benefit to the end client or end consumer and are they um you know and are you breaking things that matter and making sure that you're working within the system when you need to and you're trying to kind of create a new system where you have the opportunity to but ultimately for the end benefit of the consumer.

but then lastly I would say making sure from a resiliency perspective that they're also thinking about that integrity you know sometimes you want to break something you want to break a system to make it better uh and I think that's actually frankly been the quintessential element of of a lot of technological advancements and and the innovation ecosystem that exists in the US, but you also have to reflect on are you ultimately providing a lasting benefit to the end client or end consumer and are they um you know and are you breaking things that matter and making sure that you're working within the system when you need to and you're trying to kind of create a new system where you have the opportunity to but ultimately for the end benefit of the consumer.

Yeah. So you often talk about the Nordic stock markets and uh you operate many of them, not the Norwegian as we heard, but um the fact that the Nordic stock market stand out compared to many other European markets and we're here in Norway now. So I'm curious what makes the Nordic capital market so dynamic compared to some of some other markets.

Well, right now in Europe, there's a big debate and discussion about how do we improve and make the capital markets in Europe more vibrant. Um, and and also really to drive economic growth and innovation within within the economies here in Europe. And I've I've been saying very consistently, you do not need to look to the United States to answer that question. You need to look to Sweden and to the the broader Nordic markets. And I use Sweden because we have we own and operate the Swedish stock exchange and we're very engaged there. But we can also look to Denmark, Finland, and Norway as being exemplars of this.

So if I uh but I've studied Sweden the most, so I'm going to start there. Um so with Sweden, it's we love to think that having NASDAQ as a market operator there helps. Um and I do think that the technological advancements and things that we've done to really promote the market ecosystem there have been an ingredient to success. But it starts much it's much bigger than that.

Um, first I think that the the countries here in the Nordics have recognized that they're small countries but they want to have an outsized impact on the world. They've decided, you know, very early on um in the modern economy to be global businesses to really promote global trade and to go beyond their borders. So that that notion of constantly looking outside the system you're in to say what impact can we have on the broader economy around the world and to really promote global businesses, number one.

Number two, to have a great university system that really um kind of drives towards the modern skills that are needed to succeed in a modern economy. I think that's one of the quintessential elements of the Nordic system.

The third is the ability for ris like this risk-taking culture and we talked about in the United States. I think here in the Nordics, the Nordic countries have created this great social safety net. And that as a result, if you're a cons a citizen of the country and you have this safe social safety net, you should be you taking more risk with your discretionary capital. You should be re realizing that as a result of having that great system around you. You can take your capital and and invest it as opposed to just putting into a savings account and drive wealth creation and give yourself even more opportunity in life.

And I think that as a result they've done these very specific tax um oriented um uh programs. So the most uh influential has been the ISK program in Sweden. It's a tax advantaged savings account. Um you can invest in any as long as you put your money into public equities. That's that's your only obligation. You you get you pay about 1% tax on your total holdings every year and there's no cap gains tax. And the result of that has been the ownership of equities within the citizens of Sweden has been straight up and to the right since 2012 since that program was implemented.

So it's really kind of given it's actually encouraging citizens to invest in equities to to take that risk to own their own financials to be financially literate to help them kind of drive their future. And that then creates a retail ecosystem inside the country with a great pension system inside our countries. Um that really drives for that flywheel of economic activity, growth, expansion. We have 1,200 companies listed in the Nordics. Um we've had 450 companies go public just in Sweden alone. Oh, I'm sorry, across the Nordics in the last five years. So it's really an it's an amazing system on the back of a lot of intentional action. Long answer, but really important.

No, but I I think that's a really important point and probably of interest to to the people in this uh audience. So, um well worth spending time on.

Um so, going back a little bit to technology and and some of the technology advances that's happening now. So, how are you using technologies like AI and cloud to power and shape the future of the financial markets?

Yeah. Well, I think we we are using in two different ways. I would actually point to the markets and then I'll talk about our anti-financial crime business where we have a lot of advanced AI that we're using there.

So in the markets um we use we use AI to actually make sure that we're managing our capacity planning uh in a very dynamic way. We managed an enormous amount of message traffic through our systems. For example, in the first two weeks of April, we had our peak day ever of 550 billion messages that flowed through our markets in in a day. Um and so we have to make sure we're managing our capacity on a very dynamic level. So we use AI algorithms to help predict capacity needs.

The second is we have AIdriven um order types in our markets um to really kind of enhance the investor experience in our markets.

And then I think that the the third is to use the best of cloud capabilities. So we have AWS as a partner. They've come into our data center. We've we've been moving our markets to cloud technology now for a couple of years and it's been a great experience in terms of improving even the scalability, the latency and all the key characteristics of great markets with in our partnership with AWS. So we know that that's really the future of markets and we're excited to partner with them now to bring all of that into our Nordic markets and then to bring that across the world to our market techch clients.

But AI I think is actually the most effective use of AI within NASDAQ has been in anti-financial crime. So we have a company called Verafin that we acquired um four and a half years ago and they uh that that business and our team really uses AI algorithms to root out criminal actors. We bring all of the data together. So we are allowed to share data in the United States. So we share I have a data consorcia across the banks. fit 2600 banks in that consortia and it allows us to look for patterns and practices of criminal behaviors and be very specific in the topologies that we write to to make it so we can be more effective in rooting out criminals.

And then we use Gen AI um on automating workflows. So as you're researching a potentially bad actor, which by the way there are thousands and thousands of alerts that come out of your systems every day. Um how do you make that as efficient and automated as possible? So we have this entity research co-pilot that automates the process of researching entities to look for criminals um and then writes the report um and so that all you have to do is review review the report and submit. So very cool.

Yeah. So your NASDAQ you mainly operate in public markets. So for a while now there's been a global trend that fewer and fewer companies are going public. They're staying private for longer or forever. So what's driving this trend? And uh in your view, why should companies work toward public markets?

Well, I I do think that there's a cyclical element to that and then and then a structural element to that. So, you know, cycllically speaking, you have a world where we have a lot of company a lot of private capital that's growing. It's growing at about it's about 15 about in 2023, there's about 15 trillion of private capital growing 15% a year versus $115 trillion of public equity capital, but only growing 3% a year. So you've got kind of a shift towards some private private capital and that I think goes towards um just the the trends within within the the investment ecosystem.

But to fight that trend, you have to therefore realize that there's more competition. You know, you want the public markets to be where everyone is excited and strives to come into the public markets to make their companies accessible to everyday citizens, everyday retail investors. and that the only way to really do that at scale is to go public and to to make it so that the citizens of your country are engaged in the growth of your country and you create that virtuous flywheel of that engagement through investment.

So um we have focused on a lot of policy issues that exist in the United States. Um so everyone talks about the US as being great markets and they are but we still have had a decline of public companies as well and so we talk about um disclosure obligations. Let's streamline those. let's take some of the burden off the companies there. Proxy reform, which is the the process of voting for its different proposals and really really frankly rethinking the entire proxy process.

Um and then thirdly on litigation reform and other things that really keep companies from actually maximizing returns for their shareholders. So what our view is that if we can make progress on those three things, it will change the u what being public means and it gives us an opportunity to get more companies into public markets.

because as you say that gives uh access for the retail investors for the average investor to to actually take part in that value creation.

So with with companies staying private for longer, uh are you concerned about the um abilities for the general public to take part in that value creation? And um it's a it's a major issue.

I I think we have to recognize that um really 56% of American adults own equities in the United States. Um but but only, you know, a very small fraction of them have access to private private investments. And you could say, well, should you make private investments more accessible? I think there are ways to do that. But the the real strength of the economy is in those public markets where you get the the broad base of citizen involved in driving the growth of the economy and and frankly they benefit when the economy benefits. That's what really creates a virtuous cycle and we're we want to be stewards of that. Um and so we're hoping to get some reform done there.

I think that's a great point to end them. So, thank you so much for all your insights and um thank you. Thank you very much, Min.

Thank you very much, Min.