Nasdaq CEO’s best career advice: Ask “What would I want to do next?”

Adena Friedman was named
Nasdaq CEO in 2017.
Hollis
Johnson/Business Insider

• Adena Friedman spent two
  decades at Nasdaq, the second-largest stock
  exchange, before being named CEO in 2017.
• Friedman gave tips on how to have a career like hers on
  an episode of Business Insider’s podcast “This Is
  Success.” 
• Her best advice? Say yes to opportunities early in your
  career and regularly ask yourself, “What would I want to do
  next?”

Adena Friedman has spent more than two decades at Nasdaq,
taking on every challenge thrown at her, including seemingly insignificant
projects.

Friedman started at Nasdaq in 1993 after completing her MBA
at Vanderbilt University. She went on to serve as COO, CFO,
and now CEO. Friedman gave tips on how to have a
career like hers on an episode of Business Insider’s podcast
“This Is Success.” 

“Well, the first thing is: take those opportunities when
they’re given to you, because oftentimes they are offered up and
it’s a matter of you realizing that even if it feels overwhelming
… you can do it,” she said.

Early in her Nasdaq career, Friedman, then 28, was tasked
with a project that wasn’t central to trading and hadn’t been
touched for 10 years, she said. She took the project head
on. 

“I mean, even though it’s, like, this product that no one
really thought much about, it was an opportunity for me to have a
lot more autonomy by taking something that people didn’t care as
much about it,” Friedman said. “It actually makes it so you can
have a lot more impact on it and you can have a lot more
autonomy.”

She continued: “So I think that if you say yes to your
opportunities early on in your career, and you think about also
having some level of goals as you go through your career — they
can change, but at least always looking forward and saying, ‘What
would I want to do next?’ — that it really helps drive you, and
it helps keep you focused, but it also opens you up to
opportunities that you may not have realized were
there.” 

Friedman looks at her own success in two ways: personal and
professional. Friedman says she looks to her home life first,
considering her children’s welfare. 

“Then I look at my profession, and I say, ‘Well, have I
achieved everything that I could have achieved with the skills
that I have? Have I brought my best self to the job every single
day, and do I treat every day as Day One?'” Friedman said.
“Because that to me is the most important thing that I can do for
the success of the company.”

Listen to the full episode and subscribe to
“This Is Success” on Apple
Podcasts or Art19.