For more than 20 years, the Alexander Hamilton Awards from Treasury & Risk have recognized corporate treasury, finance, and risk management teams that have pursued innovative ideas, resulting in impressive benefits for their organization. Speaking with the professionals who drove the award-winning initiatives is always an honor and a learning experience.

This year's winners in the Financial Risk Management category demonstrate the dramatic impact that improvements in financial risk management can have on the business—and the bottom line. The projects tackle two different types of financial risks, but they both show the benefits of taking a fresh look at legacy processes.

• Silver Award: Alexion Pharmaceuticals revamped inefficient, manual balance sheet hedging processes, introducing instead an automated system that is saving the company $1 million a year and almost two full-time equivalent (FTE) staff positions.
• Gold Award: At Microsoft, the Worldwide Online Credit Services (WOCS) team tackled the challenge of credit limit enforcement for Microsoft's search advertising business. The automated system they developed has reduced bad debt write-offs, improved financial risk management, and streamlined credit and collections processes.

Congratulations to both organizations! Thank you to the judges of our 2018 competition, who selected these two projects from a slate of excellent entries: 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.