2022 Alexander Hamilton Awards: Risk Management

In maintaining a healthy risk management program, visibility is vital.

Whether they’re facing threats to operations, volatility in cash flows, currency swings, or other exposures, companies can’t effectively manage what they don’t fully understand. But organizations that do have visibility into the risks they face can mitigate the possible impact to their business.

That is the key theme of this year’s Alexander Hamilton Awards in Risk Management: More information leads to better risk management decision-making. And, as in both of our winning projects, technology is often key to gaining the visibility risk managers need.

• Silver Award:  The treasury team at medical device maker Medtronic was grappling with their ability to effectively manage foreign exchange (FX) risks via processes that were largely manual and spreadsheet-driven. Medtronic implemented a new currency risk management tool and built an innovative three-way integration with the company’s treasury management system and FX trading platform. “It sounds like a dream compared with what we had before,” says Tim Husnik, senior treasury director.
• Gold Award:  The corporate insurance team at Bristol Myers Squibb is responsible for managing all the company’s insurance policies, with the exception only of the employee health plan. Yet managing the insurance required for clinical trials around the world was taking 90 percent of the team’s time. They revamped all the processes around clinical trial insurance and built a custom application to streamline information sharing.

“This tool puts us in a better position to make sure clinical trials can start on time,” reports Henry Huseby, director, corporate insurances, for Bristol Myers Squibb. In fact, he adds, the initiative was so successful that “IT has recently launched a number of other technology-automation initiatives for other treasury processes.”

Congratulations to Bristol Myers Squibb and Medtronic for their outstanding initiatives! And thank you to the judges of our 2022 awards program: 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 Kyriba, C2FO, TIS, ION Treasury, and ICD for sponsoring the 2022 Alexander Hamilton Awards program.

For more information on our other 2022 Alexander Hamilton Awards, please visit:

• Treasury Transformation: View the on-demand webcast, or read about the projects.
• Liquidity Management: View the on-demand webcast, or read about the project.
• Working Capital & Payments: View the on-demand webcast, or read about the projects.
• Small Company Excellence: View the on-demand webcast, or read about the projects.
• Best Practices in Restricted/Emerging Markets: View the on-demand webcast, or read about the projects.
• Technology Excellence: View the on-demand webcast, or read about the projects.