For more than 20 years, the Alexander Hamilton Awards fromTreasury & Risk have recognized corporate treasury,finance, and risk management teams that have developed innovativesolutions to common corporate challenges. It's always fascinatingto learn from the professionals who developed and implemented theinitiatives that win our awards.

This year's winners in the Liquidity Management categorydemonstrate the benefits an organization can achieve when itpursues outside-the-box treasury solutions.

• Silver Award: Clearsettle simultaneously gained bettercontrol over currency risks and improved staff productivity byautomating many core treasury processes.
• Gold Award: Microsoft streamlined the process forrequesting structured financing solutions, resulting in improvedworking capital management—and a competitive advantage.

Both of these outstanding projects leveraged availabletechnologies in innovative ways to minimize manual workflows andboost efficiency. They also provided decision-makers with newinsights into key treasury and finance metrics. “If we're getting alot of requests from a particular market, then we should be able touse the data to provide explanations,” says Damaris Sardenberg,senior finance manager in Microsoft's Structured Finance group.“This gives management insight on where our focus should be.”