Sarah Youngwood is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Nasdaq. She serves as Co-Chair of Nasdaq’s Corporate Sustainability Steering Committee, overseeing the work of the Corporate Sustainability Strategy and Reporting Team and the development of the Company’s corporate sustainability strategy. In the following Q&A, Ms. Youngwood reflects on Nasdaq’s focus on driving long-term value.

How does Nasdaq’s sustainability approach support long‑term value creation?

Our sustainability approach is closely tied to how we think about long‑term value across the Company. Being “Future Forward” means aligning our work with the forces shaping the global financial system and reinforcing its transparency and resilience.

A core part of that work starts with our people. Attracting and retaining top talent remains essential to our long‑term success. In 2025, we grew our talent community to build a stronger pipeline for the future and created new training programs to further develop our workforce. We also reinforce long‑term operational resilience by actively managing climate‑related risks. Our climate strategy focuses on reducing our environmental footprint, improving energy efficiency, lowering our greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining carbon neutrality, and progressing against our net‑zero goals.

Finally, responsible innovation is a key element of our sustainability approach. All employees have the option to receive training on the ethical use of AI through role‑based learning, workshops, and enablement programs. We are building the skills and governance needed to help ensure emerging technologies are used responsibly and effectively.

How is Nasdaq approaching responsible AI innovation as part of its broader sustainability strategy?

Responsible innovation has always been part of how we think about technology at Nasdaq, and AI is no different. As we embed AI across our products and operations, we’re being deliberate about governance, capability-building, and environmental impact. From a governance standpoint, we’ve established a dedicated AI Integration Team and expect all employees receive role-based training on ethical AI use. This creates shared accountability and helps us deploy AI in ways that align with our values and risk framework.

On the operational side, we’re upskilling employees with AI tools to improve productivity and decision-making while maintaining quality and oversight. We’ve also launched employee-led initiatives like our AI Champions community, which helps AI adoption happen thoughtfully across the organization. As AI adoption expands, Nasdaq is focused on understanding and managing AIrelated environmental impacts including procuring 100% renewable electricity across our operations, encouraging employees to select the appropriate size AI model for their tasks, and engaging our technology and cloud suppliers on energy efficiency and responsible water use.

How do you think about resilience in a world that feels increasingly complex—and what role does sustainability play?

Resilience today isn’t about adding more layers of process—it’s about staying clear on principles and using modern tools to reduce complexity, not compound it. Sustainability supports that in very practical ways: it pushes us to strengthen transparency and disclosure, direct capital toward innovation that can scale responsibly, and continue shaping the future of market infrastructure so it can adapt as risks and requirements evolve. At Nasdaq, we view that as a core part of long-term value—helping clients and markets operate with more trust, durability, and confidence through change.

Read the Full 2025 Sustainability & TCFD Report