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

This year's winners in the Financial Risk Management categorydemonstrate the dramatic impact that improvements in financial riskmanagement can have on the business—and the bottom line. Theprojects tackle two different types of financial risks, but theyboth show the benefits of taking a fresh look at legacyprocesses.

• Silver Award: Alexion Pharmaceuticals revamped inefficient,manual balance sheet hedging processes, introducing instead anautomated system that is saving the company $1 million a year andalmost 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 forMicrosoft's search advertising business. The automated system theydeveloped has reduced bad debt write-offs, improved financial riskmanagement, and streamlined credit and collections processes.

Congratulations to both organizations! Thank you to the judgesof our 2018 competition, who selected these two projects from aslate of excellent entries: Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFOand treasurer of Microsoft; Craig Jeffery, managing partner ofStrategic Treasurer; Marie Hollein, former president and CEO ofFinancial Executives International; and Betty Hwang, managingdirector in Deloitte's Risk & Financial Advisory practice.

Finally, thank you very much to Euler Hermes, Citi, andTreasuryXpress for sponsoring the Alexander Hamilton Awardsprogram.