Excellence in Leadership: Presented to a woman who demonstrates exemplary leadership and exceptional performance throughout her career. This individual, selected by the Advisory Committee, is such an outstanding professional that she qualifies for multiple award categories and is considered to be the standard-bearer for women in the financial community.
Anna Ewing, executive vice president, Global Technology Solutions, NASDAQ OMX Group Inc.
Anna Ewing is fervent about what she does. And that drives her to excel-in whatever capacity she serves.
Im driven by several key things, but the first is that passionate about what I do, Ewing told Traders Magazine. It manifests itself in me. And that drives me to take on more in life.
And hers is a life that has stretched globally and a career thats spanned over 25 years. Its included many steps outside her comfort zone-something else Ewing said is essential to thriving and excelling.
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You also need to be willing to take risks in your career and in your convictions to move things forward, she said.
Other keys to her achievements are being credible and building trust. It is on the back of these tenets that one can measure success. My brand is one of trust and credibility. I am someone who has built relationships based on trust-whether with my customers, peers, my team or my chief executive officer.
That trust has earned her a long customer-facing career on Wall Street at a handful of firms. Ewing started at Merrill Lynch in Toronto and then in its New York office, where she held various leadership positions within its technology group. She then joined CIBC World Markets in New York and Toronto, where she served as managing director of global applications services and was a founding member of CIBC.com. At these firms, she was on the cutting edge of technology and the electronic revolution, from the introduction of the PC to Y2K to the birth of the Internet, and worked to match client needs with the commensurate technology.
Ive always been aligned with the customer, but also in driving change and innovation within an organization, she said. When I started back in the PC days, it was all about rolling out evolving and implementing it within the clients framework.
At the turn of the millennium, Ewing joined Nasdaq when it was only a single exchange serving the U.S. equities markets. As chief information officer, she was responsible for its global technology organization. In that role, she drove the technology roadmap and integration processes for Nasdaq OMXs transformation from a single marketplace to diversified exchange company with 26 markets around the globe, covering all major asset classes. Under her guidance, her group evolved from a technology supplier to internal clients into a trusted business partner and member of the C-suite, taking the technology-business collaboration into the digital age.
Under the guidance of Ewing and her team, the exchange operator runs 26 marketplaces, across multiple geographies and myriad asset classes. It provides technology solutions to more than 10,000 firms globally.
And it is still passion that drives her every morning.
This all comes back to loving what I do, being a part of the change, the transformation of our business, Ewing said. And I dont do it alone. Ive always had success in building great teams that shared the passion.
