The magic of Nasdaq years

Robert Greifeld, the former chief executive and chairperson of the storied institution Nasdaq, admires turtles. In fact, he keeps dozens of them as pets. They are steady, consistent creatures with hard shells. They have been around since the time of dinosaurs and know how to survive, he says. There’s another reason. When it comes to business, speed is sometimes critical. But speed without a clear and consistent direction can lead you nowhere. Sometimes, especially in times of crisis, you need to move slowly and deliberately, and bank on your thick skin. Turtles know how to do that. Greifeld offers many such learnings from his action-packed tenure at the Nasdaq, in Market Mover: Lessons From A Decade Of Change At Nasdaq, where he had a front-row seat for the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the ensuing panic, was centre stage during the frightening Flash Crash, the infamous Facebook IPO, and was caught up in controversy around high frequency traders. Greifeld, currently the chair of Virtu Financial and co-founder and managing partner at Cornerstone Investment Capital, shares valuable lessons for leaders on how to triage during a corporate turnaround, how to build a high-performing management team, how to embed innovation into the DNA of your institution, how to lead during a public relations crisis and how to get ahead of a market in transition.