Adena Friedman at the World Economic Forum in Davos, on Jan. 22. 

The new Trump administration offers an opportunity to rework regulation in the U.S. to make it more attractive for companies to tap public markets, Nasdaq Inc. Chief Executive Officer Adena Friedman said.

“We are very excited to engage with the new administration to think about regulation differently,” Friedman said Wednesday in a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “There is opportunity to work with the administration to rethink some of the levels of regulation and requirements for public companies themselves, and make sure that it is more balanced between being a public company and a private company.”

Friedman, who leads one of the largest US stock exchanges, has been at the helm since 2017. In recent years, she’s helped the firm build beyond its roots as an exchange so it can continue to grow despite a dip in the markets-based business when initial public offerings or trading volumes are down.

This year will be “a constructive year for new issuances and IPOs,” she said. “But we still have a regulatory challenge in terms of companies, and what they go through as a public company,” including abiding by listings standards.

US initial public offerings are still recovering from a period of interest-rate hikes that curbed the impacts of pandemic-era stimulus and triggered market corrections. Many IPO bankers are looking at 2025 and President Donald Trump’s administration as a growth driver, though questions around tariffs remain.

“Regulation is very important in the financial industry but there is outcome-oriented regulation that is affective and can be efficient, and then there is input-oriented regulation which can be very ineffective and inefficient,” Friedman said. “We have done some work on that to understand what is the difference, and how we can engage with the administration to make the entire industry more productive.”

In a separate interview in Davos earlier Wednesday, Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq’s main competitor, said the market for US IPOs is opening up following the election, with more companies pursuing public offerings under a Trump administration.