For more than 20 years, the Alexander Hamilton Awards from Treasury & Risk have recognized corporate treasury, finance, and risk management teams that have developed innovative solutions to common corporate challenges. It's always fascinating to learn from the professionals who developed and implemented the initiatives that win our awards.

This year's winners in the Liquidity Management category demonstrate the benefits an organization can achieve when it pursues outside-the-box treasury solutions.

• Silver Award: Clearsettle simultaneously gained better control over currency risks and improved staff productivity by automating many core treasury processes.
• Gold Award: Microsoft streamlined the process for requesting structured financing solutions, resulting in improved working capital management—and a competitive advantage.

Both of these outstanding projects leveraged available technologies in innovative ways to minimize manual workflows and boost efficiency. They also provided decision-makers with new insights into key treasury and finance metrics. “If we're getting a lot of requests from a particular market, then we should be able to use the data to provide explanations,” says Damaris Sardenberg, senior finance manager in Microsoft's Structured Finance group. “This gives management insight on where our focus should be.”