Deadline extension: Submit your entry by midnight ET on Monday, September 16, 2024!

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The 2025 Alexander Hamilton Awards program is now open to submissions. If your team has completed an innovative initiative in the fields of treasury, finance, and/or risk management, we would love to hear more about your project!

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To enter, you must complete our online entry form. Entry is entirely free of charge; however, winners will be expected to participate in a Treasury & Risk article and/or webcast recognizing their achievements sometime in 2025.

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Please note that the awards are designed to honor the corporate treasury, finance, and/or risk management professionals who have completed a spectacular project, rather than any consulting firm, bank, or vendor that may have helped make the project successful.

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The entry form asks for the following information, in addition to background and contact info for the company and the project lead:

• The specifics of the challenges in your legacy environment. (Why did your company undertake this project?)
• Your plan to solve these challenges. (Give details about your needs assessment, involvement of other internal departments, the initiative’s key goals, and your approach to project management.)
• The solution implemented through this project. (What new processes did you implement? What technologies are you using, and how do systems work together? What were the “people” considerations in your project? Be sure to describe any characteristics of your project that are unusual, that make the project leading-edge, and/or that give your company a competitive advantage.)
• The major benefits achieved and how the project achieved them. (Quantify benefits when possible. For estimates of cost savings, specify whether they’re net or gross.)
• Primary reasons the project was successful (up to 3 reasons).
• In 100 words or less, explain what makes this project exceptional. (What is innovative/unusual about it, and why do you think it deserves to win an Alexander Hamilton Award?)

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You will also need to select one of the following eight categories as the area of treasury/finance/risk management in which your project achieved its greatest innovations:

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Treasury Transformation. This category celebrates projects that have achieved noteworthy success through a major revamp of corporate treasury processes. Centralization or decentralization of the treasury function, outsourcing initiatives, restructuring of treasury to support new lines of business, and staff recruitment or development programs—among other types of projects—fit into this category.

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Liquidity Management. This category is aimed at portfolio management, short-term investing, and cash visibility, as well as debt management and crisis planning to ensure adequate ongoing liquidity. Cash forecasting and cash pooling projects fit into this category.

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Financial Risk Management. This category includes innovative solutions in management of risks around domestic or international interest rates, foreign exchange, or commodity prices; the use of derivatives or capital markets to hedge the company’s financial risk exposures; and/or management of counterparty credit risk.

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Working Capital & Payments. This category recognizes innovations related to the collection of incoming payments and the disbursement of outgoing payments, as well as the organizational structure around management of payments and the cash conversion cycle.

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Payment Fraud Prevention. According to recent research by Treasury & Risk, more than half of all companies fell victim to payment fraud in 2022. Award winners in the Payment Fraud Prevention category will be projects that demonstrate innovation in mitigating the risk of fraud, whether via technology, process, staff training, or other means.

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Operational Risk Management & Insurance. This category encompasses innovative solutions around risk assessment, identification, mitigation, and/or transfer when protecting a company’s business, property, supply chain, employees, data, and/or reputation.

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Technology Excellence. This award recognizes corporate treasury or finance departments for their implementation of innovative technology solutions that may be developed either internally or externally. Winning projects must be exceptionally creative. They also must solve a major problem, must yield impressive results, and/or must set a precedent for a best practice in treasury or finance.

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Best Practices in Restricted/Emerging Markets. This award recognizes corporate treasury, finance, and risk management functions that have successfully supported business operations in parts of the world where other organizations may fear to tread. Winning projects may include pioneering solutions that overcome regional restrictions on movement of money, compliance or disclosure challenges, banking regulations, and/or cultural issues.

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If you have any questions about the Alexander Hamilton Award program, or would like to review a PDF of the entry form before completing the online form, please contact Treasury & Risk editor in chief Meg Waters: [email protected].

 

Entry deadline:  midnight ET on Monday, September 16, 2024.

We look forward to reviewing your entry—good luck!