Stacey Cunningham on leading the New York Stock Exchange

When Stacey Cunningham became the first female head of the 227-year-old New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 2018, she immediately got to work helping the NYSE stay ahead of the game through the implementation of cutting-edge technology.

Recently, Stacey sat down with LionTree founder and CEO Aryeh Bourkoff at the NYSE podcast studio in New York, sharing stories from her journey from intern to executive, her thoughts on diversity, and the ins and outs of going public. Here’s what we learned:

1. Fill the room with diverse voices.

When building a management team, Stacey views diversity of thought as critical. She believes in focusing less on the number of women or people of different backgrounds in the room and more on finding people who think differently. When you focus on diversity of thought, diversity in gender and background tends to follow. She also notes that when you’re building a team that thinks more broadly, culture is important. You can have diversity in thought while still being aligned in how you communicate and respect your team members, and having a consistent culture helps with that.

2. Going public can be viewed as a social good.

Highlighting that the U.S is a nation built on shared success, Stacey views IPOs and public markets as an opportunity for companies to share their success with the community, whereas staying private longer actually contributes to the bifurcation of wealth. Having the opportunity to buy a share of stock in a company is perhaps the most democratic process that we have in our country.

Entering the public markets also brings a level of transparency and accountability that companies can avoid while private. IPOs give the public a chance to not only weigh-in on the valuation of a company, but define the metrics as well.

3. Direct Listing allow companies to reimagine their path to public.

Slack and Spotify are the only companies that have taken this route to date, allowing them to decouple capital raising from going public. Companies primed for Direct Listing are well-capitalized with no need to raise new capital, and have generally raised significant capital in private markets, giving them a large number of shareholders. All of these holders are able to monetize their shares on day one. Direct Listing also allows the company to be fairly valued by the public markets, rather than setting a price based on investor interest during a roadshow. Stacey notes that with Slack and Spotify, they actually traded with less volatility and their Direct Listings democratized access to the public events as there wasn’t an allocation to a handful of institutional investors prior to the opening.

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If you love this recap and want to learn more, listen to NYSE President Stacey Cunningham in conversation with LionTree’s CEO and founder Aryeh Bourkoff, embedded below, and available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more great content, check out our new podcast, “Conversations From Media 2.0,” wherever you listen.