For more than 20 years, the Alexander Hamilton Awards from Treasury & Risk have recognized corporate treasury, finance, and risk management teams that have pursued innovation—and succeeded wildly in that pursuit. Speaking with the professionals who drove the award-winning initiatives is always an honor and a learning experience.

This year's winners in the Treasury Transformation category truly transformed their treasury functions.

• Bronze Award: OpenText rationalized its complex global banking structure, setting up three cash pools and positioning the business for easier integration of future acquisitions.
• Silver Award: Avery Dennison rebuilt its European treasury function, centralizing bank account management, intercompany lending, and FX risk management.
• Gold Award: Herc Rentals, in its divestiture from Hertz, spun up a fully functional treasury group to support a billion-dollar company in just six months.

These three initiatives have two key characteristics in common: a drive to streamline processes, and an emphasis on building cross-functional collaboration throughout the company. “For a project like ours, you need buy-in not just from those inside treasury, but externally as well,” says Mustally Hussain, vice president and treasurer of Herc Rentals. “Getting that buy-in requires you to understand what people's needs are. Become a manager of their needs, and add value by connecting with them cross-functionally across the value chain. If you can do that, then treasury becomes important. If you don't do that, treasury becomes marginalized and just becomes a back-office operation.”

Congratulations to all three companies, on the award and on building cross-funtional consensus to put in place world-class treasury processes and structures!

Thank you very much to the judges of this year's competition: Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFO and treasurer of Microsoft; Craig Jeffery, managing partner of Strategic Treasurer; Marie Hollein, former president and CEO of Financial Executives International; and Betty Hwang, managing director in Deloitte's Risk & Financial Advisory practice.

Last but certainly not least, thank you to Citi for sponsoring this year's Alexander Hamilton Awards. Soon you will also be able to register here to view an on-demand version of the webcast featuring this year's Treasury Transformation winners. Enjoy!