2023 Alexander Hamilton Awards: Treasury Transformation

Ever since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, treasury teams have been under senior management’s magnifying glass. Liquidity was key to survival early in the pandemic: As revenues fell, access to credit was drying up for many businesses. Markets were volatile, and the future felt wildly uncertain. Still, some treasury teams were able to leverage that challenging environment to improve their standing within their broader organization.

This year’s Alexander Hamilton Award winners in the category Treasury Transformation undertook major, transformative initiatives that gave treasury a new, higher profile within the organization. That respect and inclusion in strategic decision-making will likely continue, even as the effects of the pandemic begin to fade.

“In most companies, the people in sales and marketing and manufacturing think of treasury primarily as a support function,” says Sassan Parandeh, global treasurer and director of risk management for nongovernmental organization (NGO) ChildFund International. “But because of our involvement in this [award-winning] initiative, we are no longer thought of as just a back-office unit. We are part of the organization’s strategic thinking.”

Each of our award-winning organizations made substantial upgrades to treasury processes, while also laying the groundwork for ongoing improvements to support the company into the future:

• Gold Award:  As ChildFund International shifted to remote work for staff around the world, Parandeh’s treasury team noticed a concerning trend: Some treasury and finance employees ended up working from coffee shops, hotels, and public Wi-Fi hotspots. Treasury headed up an organization-wide effort to improve cybersecurity, including starting an internal cyber incident response team (CIRT). In doing so, the treasury team established themselves as the NGO’s go-to office for risk management decision-making.
• Silver Award:  When Exelon Corporation and Constellation Energy Corporation separated into two Fortune 200 companies, their newly reformed treasury groups needed to overhaul key systems and processes. The teams embraced the period of transition that their company was in, undertaking a complete review of treasury operations. They developed a vision of treasury as a value driver for, and partner to, the newly separated businesses. Subsequent technology and process implementations helped both companies’ treasury teams reach that goal.
• Bronze Award:  Starwood Capital Group is a leading private investment firm with a focus on real estate. One key process for the Starwood treasury team is opening new bank accounts, because the organization frequently adds new properties, and a single property might require several signers on its accounts. Treasury wanted to accelerate the pace of business by shrinking bank onboarding, but legacy tools offered by the firm’s transaction banks did not support this goal. Starwood addressed this challenge by turning to virtual accounts—which have both accelerated deal closes and improved liquidity management.

These innovative and transformational initiatives positioned the treasury team in each of these organizations to better support its company’s strategic objectives. As Gaina Dorvil, assistant treasurer for Starwood Capital, explains the big-picture benefits of her project: “Utilizing a virtual account structure makes us more of a real-time treasury and makes Starwood Capital Group a more agile business.”

Congratulations to Exelon Corp., Constellation Energy, Starwood Capital, and ChildFund International for their outstanding initiatives! And thank you to the judges of our 2023 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; Paul Galloway, senior adviser at Strategic Treasurer; and Marie Hollein, former president and CEO of Financial Executives International.

Finally, thank you very much to Kyriba and TIS for sponsoring the 2023 Alexander Hamilton Awards program.

You can learn more about the Treasury Transformation award-winning projects by watching the on-demand webcast during which we presented the awards.

Treasury & Risk will continue to present 2023 Alexander Hamilton Awards in a series of articles and webcasts throughout the year.

• Register today for our live webcast recognizing the Alexander Hamilton Small Company Excellence Award winners, which will take place on Tuesday, April 25, at 11 a.m. ET.
• Stay tuned for presentation of the rest of this year’s awards!