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Corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies are out of favor as President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
But they aren’t totally down for the count, a public company leader who has pushed for more DEI initiatives at tech companies said.
“I personally do not think so,” Nasdaq chair and CEO Adena Friedman said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid podcast at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (video above; listen in below).
Friedman was responding to whether corporate America has been set back decades amid DEI rollbacks at large companies such as Meta (META) and Walmart (WMT).
“I can say for Nasdaq, we’re very proud of what we do,” Friedman added. “We feel very good about the results that we’ve been able to achieve in terms of creating that culture of inclusivity and belonging. And I think a lot of companies feel the same way I do, and it’s just going to be a little bit quieter.”
A federal appeals court recently struck down Nasdaq’s attempt to diversify company boards.
In mid-December, a mostly conservative federal appeals court concluded the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should not have approved the Nasdaq rules in 2021.
These rules would have required the thousands of mostly tech companies on the exchange to have at least one woman on their board and one person who identified as a minority or LGBTQ. A company would have to explain why it was unable to meet this requirement. The rules also included an annual board diversity disclosure.
In addition, President Trump has vowed to rid the federal government of DEI mandates, while Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has called for more masculine energy in companies.
“I think that being a CEO is a competitive existence. I am a competitor,” Friedman said.
“But being competitive and being quietly confident — they’re not antithetical to each other. Having quiet confidence, being humble, being a learner, being willing to listen to other people, that’s a core part of being a successful CEO as well.”
Friedman is ultimately bullish on IPO outlooks as the Trump administration loosens up regulations.
The IPO market was mixed at best in 2024 despite strong showings by Reddit (RDDT), Viking (VIK), and Rubrik (RBRK). IPOs raised about $123 billion last year, compared to a peak of $594 billion in 2021, according to Dealogic data.
A total of 150 companies went public last year, per a Renaissance Capital study.
