As global uncertainty mounts, corporate treasury teams have become increasingly focused on optimizing their liquidity in every locale where they do business. "In order to [meet corporate strategic objectives], we needed to be able to access all our cash globally, wherever it was," says Steve Propper, vice president and corporate treasurer for Corning Incorporated. "The more fungible our cash is, the more liquidity we have on a global basis."

Optimizing a company's utilization of cash can be challenging, however. In some cases, restrictions on cross-border transactions limit a treasury's ability to put resources to work in another region of the world. In other cases, a significant debt load or rapid growth leads to conditions that limit visibility into or availability of the liquidity that is vital to growth and perhaps to survival when markets turn downward.

This year's Alexander Hamilton Awards in Liquidity Management recognize three companies that undertook major liquidity-improvement initiatives:

• Bronze Award:  To accommodate extremely rapid growth around the world, Uber Technologies treasury allowed room for some non-standard payment processes and cash management that entailed extensive manual work. The company's treasury standardization and automation initiative improved working capital management, reduced staff time spent on cash management, and saved millions of dollars a year.
• Silver Award:  WW International (formerly known as Weight Watchers) was heavily leveraged, and its large term loan was coming due. Improving visibility into and management of liquidity enabled the company to pay down part of its debt and boost its credit rating, for the best possible outcome in its debt refinancing.
• Gold Award:  To cut its global cash store in half, Corning Inc. needed to include its Chinese businesses in its global pooling structure. Navigating that nation's evolving regulatory landscape was challenging, but it was well worth the effort, providing a crucial portion of the $2 billion of cash that Corning was able to remove from its balance sheet.

Congratulations to these companies for completing these outstanding projects! And thank you to the judges of this year's competition: Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFO and treasurer of Microsoft; Craig Jeffery, managing partner of Strategic Treasurer; Marie Hollein, former president and CEO of Financial Executives International; and Prashant Patri, a principal in Deloitte's Global Treasury Advisory Services practice.

Finally, thank you very much to Citi, ION, and GTreasury for sponsoring this year's Alexander Hamilton Awards program. Stay tuned for additional articles and webcasts throughout the year to recognize the winners in our other categories, as well as the winner of the 2019 Alexander Hamilton Overall Excellence Award.

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