2021 Alexander Hamilton Awards: Best Practices in Restricted/Emerging Markets

Doing business in markets that are heavily regulated is challenging for any company, and especially so for a multinational that has outposts in countries around the world. Few organizations experience this challenge as acutely as Microsoft does, because few do business in as many nations.

Microsoft keeps its broad business manageable by standardizing processes wherever possible. Sometimes, though, there are jurisdictions where the common way of doing things in most places on earth simply won’t work. This is the situation Microsoft encountered when Covid-19 led customers in most every market to request terms extensions. The company’s usual payment financing solution was not an option in some locales.

The innovative solution developed by the Global Treasury and Financial Services group won Microsoft the 2021 Gold Alexander Hamilton Award in the category Best Practices in Restricted/Emerging Markets.

Congratulations to Microsoft on this outstanding initiative! And thank you to the judges of the competition: Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFO and treasurer of Microsoft; Erik Smolders, former treasurer of Ingram Micro and a vice president in Deloitte’s Global Treasury Advisory Services practice; Craig Jeffery, managing partner of Strategic Treasurer; and Marie Hollein, former president and CEO of Financial Executives International.

Finally, thank you very much to FinLync, ICD, GTreasury, Kyriba, and C2FO for sponsoring the 2021 Alexander Hamilton Awards program.

Treasury & Risk will continue presenting our 2021 Alexander Hamilton Awards in a series of articles and webcasts throughout the year.

• First, we will recognize Microsoft as the winner of the 2021 Alexander Hamilton Overall Excellence Award during a live webcast September 8th that delves into how the company fosters innovation throughout its treasury function.
• Second, you can learn more about winning projects in the categories we’ve already awarded: Treasury Transformation, Liquidity Management, Technology Excellence, and Working Capital Management: Partner Impact.
• We will present awards in the final categories for 2021 before the end of the year, so stay tuned for those articles.
• And finally, if your organization has completed an innovative project in the areas of treasury, finance, and/or risk management, consider entering in the 2022 Alexander Hamilton Awards contest. Deadline to submit the online entry form is August 31, 2021, so don’t delay!