About the Adam Smith Awards
An Adam Smith Award is a respected endorsement of your hard work and achievements. In 2011 no fewer than 235 entries were received from companies spanning a broad universe in terms of size, industry sector and geography, with every continent represented.
These Awards have very quickly become the 'benchmark' for true treasury talent and our highly respected judging panel will recognise innovation, creativity, outstanding insight, thinking 'outside the box' and, of course, real business impact.
Why are they called Adam Smith Awards?
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (1723-1790) helped to develop modern economic theory and provided a rationale for free trade and the capitalist system. He was a leading innovator of free-market policies and an advocate of a free society and is perhaps best known for his series of books 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' normally referred to as 'The Wealth of Nations'. This work advocates the division of labour and the benefits of competition and free trade and also has some wonderful observations on how markets work:
Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it…
The Adam Smith Awards are not just another industry event – they recognise excellence. That is why we have named them after Adam Smith who reminds us all what best practice is.