Nasdaq Executive's Experiences on the WFE's Market Infrastructure Certificate Programme

By: Jeff Kimsey, Head of Global Data Regulation, Nasdaq Feb 2025

What is your role and why did you decide that undertaking the WFE Market Infrastructure Certificate programme would be beneficial to you?

My current role is head of global data regulation, which helps create public policy for Nasdaq pertaining to global regulation specific to market data. This role is heavily involved in understanding the regulatory landscape for market data and helping to shape the future of it with regulators, clients, academics and others.  

In reading about the WFE market infrastructure course, it touched on some areas that I am already involved with, but I was intrigued by the new topics I didn’t have exposure to. I was extremely interested in learning more in areas I don’t normally touch with my current day-to-day. To apply that knowledge in any possible future overlap with my current role seemed beneficial. But most of all, I had a keen interest in talking to others in the industry and understanding their experiences.

Talk us through some personal highlights from the programme, and which sessions did you find particularly useful?

I was a little surprised with how much I learned both by the content and by the experiences of others in the class. To sit down and talk to someone who regulates Polish trading or have lunch with someone from the stock exchange of Thailand and realise they are having some of the same experiences I am was invaluable. I learned so much about the biggest problems stock exchanges in the Middle East were facing, which helped influence my thinking about our Middle East strategy.  

 From a content perspective, I hadn’t had any exposure to payments and the payment infrastructure so that was quite eye-opening. It looks like it is an area ripe for disruption by both newcomers and incumbents. I found the capstone research project to be much more enjoyable than I thought it would be and researching my topic really opened up some insight on current thematics.

How have you utilised your learnings in the work that you do at your organisation?

Generally, this has helped me take into account many of the class topics where they might come up in my daily work. As an example, there was an internal discussion a couple of months ago about payments where I could contribute what I recently learned in class. It seems there are more and more of these types of discussions happening and the class helped provide knowledge that I would have otherwise never had.

What was the topic of your industry project, why did you choose it and what were your main conclusions?

It was a bit difficult to choose my topic at first, but when I got into it, it almost wrote itself. I chose to review the history of the U.S. exchanges and competitive nature of exchanges over the last 20 years. It was fascinating to step back and review academic papers and other literature about what I lived through, seeing it in a different light. My conclusion was basically that much like any competitive industry, in order to compete, you must continue to invest and innovate in your products and engagement with customers. Exchanges are no different!

How beneficial were the two residential weeks: the academic week in London and the practitioner week in Chicago?

I can’t express enough how valuable it was to spend two weeks in class learning with my classmates. Meeting so many interesting people from different cultures and creating a bond with them was more than I could ever have expected. I enjoyed so much getting to know them on a personal level and just hanging out at times.

For more information on the WFE Market Infrastructure Certificate, and to apply, please click here: https://www.world-exchanges.org/education/mic. 


Disclaimer:

The views, thoughts and opinions contained in this Focus article belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect the WFE’s policy position on the issue, or the WFE’s views or opinions.