Is there something in the water–or the culture–at technology companies that so often makes them Alexander Hamilton Award winners? This year, I am pleased to congratulate Lucent Technologies Inc., another representative from the tech community, on its selection as the winner of Treasury & Risk Management's overall excellence award. Like Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. before it, Lucent demonstrated in its creation of an in-house bank the kind of innovation and superior execution that exemplifies overall excellence recipients.

This year, reflecting the changing priorities in finance, T&RM

inaugurates a new annual award in corporate governance and celebrates our first winner, General Motors Corp. Unlike the awards for excellence in treasury management, the governance award is not selected on the basis of a project but rather on a company's consistent pursuit of best practices. The choice reflects extensive interviews and analysis by the T&RM editors.