Robert Greifeld moved from SunGard Data Systems to become president and CEO of the Nasdaq Stock Market in May 2003. An avid runner, he is chairman of the USA Track & Field Foundation. He spoke to The American in his Manhattan office after returning from China.

THE AMERICAN: Bob, why is China important to Nasdaq?

Robert Greifeld: We have been the beneficiary of 31 Chinese companies coming to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market. China is our second most active country. But more important, for the medium and long term, as we travel around China we see a lot of the similar ingredients that have existed in the U.S.: great educational systems, availability of ven­ture funding, and the desire of Chinese citizens to be successful in a capitalistic environment.

Peter Wallison at the American Enterprise Institute has written about the problems in get­ting listings from foreign companies. Last year, London gained 139 new foreign listings, Nasdaq, 19. Is the problem regulation here?

The two main culprits are the state of litigation in the U.S. and, secondarily, the regulatory burden that we bear as compared to other markets. I mean the burden on a relative basis, not an absolute basis, because a significant portion of the regulation in the U.S. is well-founded and protects investors.

These things hinder our progress, but understand that we have done well with our defined market with respect to international IPOs. Very small companies that have been attracted to the London Marketplace really are not up to our standards today. We hope that as they evolve, they will look at Nasdaq as a place to go. But we are proud of our listing stan­dards. When you invest in a Nasdaq company, you expect a certain level of corporate governance, and not every company is in the position to meet those standards at one particular point in time.

You now own one-fourth of the London Stock Exchange. How do you see global markets evolving?

Exchanges had traditionally been mutualized orga­nizations, and the mutual owners were essentially the broker-dealers. In that situation, the exchange obviously was completely beholden to the broker-dealers. As the exchanges evolved, they moved to a for-profit status and then, finally, to going public.

'Sports, public policy, arts, education—there are always things to talk about beyond the quarterly performance or their golf game.'

Europe has been significantly ahead of the U.S. in this endeavor, but the U.S. has rapidly closed that gap, and we went public in our own market in January of 2005. You now have the management of these exchanges operating as classic for-profit businesses. They have to provide growth opportu­nities to their investors, so they look at the sector on a global basis. That is the context of where all this [merger] activity has developed.

The other aspect is that other markets have copied our model, and you see almost exclusively electronic markets. So you have the ability to extract technol­ogy synergies by putting together the technologies of two similar markets.

Do you think the trading technology you have now is sufficient to meet the needs of investors?

We definitely do. Three years ago, we could process basically a thousand orders per second. We are now able to process 60,000 orders per second. We are very comfortable with our current environment.

You have run four marathons. What is the rela­tionship between being a successful CEO and being physically fit?

First, being fit is a method of handling and relieving stress. You come out of a workout in a better men­tal state than when you went in. Second, any chief executive officer today has a very demanding job. It requires a great deal of endur­ance, and being fit helps meet the physical aspects of the job. When you are in a situation where you are flying to China and back in a three-day span and have an early morning breakfast the day you get back and a dinner the following…

Yes. If you are not in physical shape, I think it makes it more difficult to meet the demands of that schedule.

Now, at THE AMERICAN we’re interested in intel­lectual fitness, the idea—the notion—of CEOs being involved in the world of ideas. Do you see that as well?

Definitely. You know, it is impossible to turn the brain off once you have turned it on at a high rate of velocity. So you see that most CEOs, for better or worse, have an opinion on most every topic: sports, public policy, arts, education. There are always things to talk about beyond the quarterly perfor­mance or their golf game.

And what’s the top issue you hear people talking about today in the C-suite?

The highest percentage of CEO engagement is with the regulatory environment and the litigation environment here in the United States. That is a pervasive concern.

Photograph by John Madere