From trade issues to hurricanes, and from political upheaval tocybersecurity breaches and everything in between, multinationalstoday face dozens—or, more accurately, hundreds—of potential criseslurking in the shadows of global markets. These vulnerabilities putnot only revenue at risk, but also supply chains, investments,access to corporate cash, and even timely disbursements of paymentssuch as payroll for overseas employees.

"The last 10 years have been very interesting for anybody ininternational cash management," says Jim Scurlock, head of cashmanagement for Microsoft. Staying ahead of all the myriad risksrequires today's treasury teams to be vigilant about identifyingpotential exposures, to proactively intervene when possible, and tocollaborate with other groups throughout the organization.

These are traits reflected by both winners of this year'sAlexander Hamilton Awards in Operational Risk Management &Insurance:

• Silver Award:  The U.S. Postal Service had a sophisticated systemfor protecting customers' credit-card data, but a cross-functionalteam of treasury, IT, and security professionals determined thattokenization of card numbers would be more secure. Theimplementation of tokenization technology was fairlystraightforward, but convincing hundreds of thousands of employeesthroughout the organization that it would work required carefullyconstructed and well-planned communications.
• Gold Award:  To reduce liquidity riskaround the world, Microsoft worked with its banks to build one ofthe world's first multi-country, multi-currency zero-balanceaccount structures. It also set up multi-bank cross-border cashsweeps out of high-risk countries and expanded its pay-on-behalf-ofstructure. All in all, these changes enabled Microsoft to reduceits global cash balances by around $1 billion. The company furtherreduced operational risks by establishing a contingency action planthrough which employees in treasury and related functions monitorglobal trends, then respond quickly and decisively whenever theyidentify a risk.

How does a company empower treasury professionals to undertakesuch radical improvements? Scurlock says that in Microsoft'streasury function, "self-direction is encouraged. The leadershipteam has the attitude that 'If you have an idea, let's try it.Let's take the risks. If we're going to fail, let's fail fast andmove on.'" The benefits of this leadership approach, he adds, arethat "treasury staff feel empowered to engage with other teamsacross the company, and to make decisions on new ideas withoutnecessarily having to go through a steering committee or getapproval to pull in certain resources. We hire professionals andthen trust them to take risks. I feel like this approach has neversteered us wrong."

Congratulations to both Microsoft and the U.S. Postal Servicefor their outstanding initiatives! And thank you to the judges ofthis year's competition: Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFO andtreasurer of Microsoft; Craig Jeffery, managing partner ofStrategic Treasurer; Marie Hollein, former president and CEO ofFinancial Executives International; and Prashant Patri, a principalin Deloitte's Global Treasury Advisory Services practice.

Finally, thank you very much to Citi, ION, and GTreasury forsponsoring this year's Alexander Hamilton Awards program. Staytuned for additional articles and webcasts throughout theyear to recognize the winners in our other categories, as well asthe winner of the 2019 Alexander Hamilton Overall ExcellenceAward.

• Read here about the 2019 Alexander HamiltonAward winners in our Treasury Transformation category, or register to view an on-demand webcast with thatcategory's winners.
• Read here about the 2019 winners in TechnologyExcellence and/or register here for the on-demand webcast.
• Follow this link to articles about the 2019 winners inthe Working Capital & Payments category and/or register here for that on-demand event.
• Read here about the 2019 winners in theLiquidity Management category.