Nasdaq OMX Group said on Monday its former chief financial officer Adena Friedman will rejoin the company as president of global corporate and information technology solutions, reporting to Chief Executive Robert Greifeld.
Friedman, who left Nasdaq in 2011, was most recently chief financial officer of private-equity firm Carlyle Group.
“We are sad to see Adena go but understand this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her to serve as their president and to be the leading candidate to some day run Nasdaq,” Caryle’s co-founder and co-CEO David Rubenstein said in a statement.
The transatlantic exchange operator has been working on a succession plan since late last year, with several internal and external candidates up for consideration. Friedman was one of the candidates on the list.
The urgency of succession planning first hit the board in early 2011, when Friedman left to become the CFO of Carlyle. Greifeld had been positioning Friedman as his successor, and her departure put a spotlight on the lack of depth in the management bench that remained.
Calls for Greifeld’s succession grew louder after Facebook’s botched IPO in 2012 and a three-hour-long trading halt on the Nasdaq due to a software glitch last August.
Carlyle chief accounting officer Curt Buser, a former Ernst & Young audit partner, will replace Friedman on an interim basis until her successor is named, Carlyle said.