Photo of Rizwana Ameer, Citi, Nicolas Papaioannou, Kieran Buckley and Idoia Laburu, Eaton and John Murray, J.P. Morgan
Treasury team
Ireland
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Eaton is a global intelligent power management company with 2025 sales of US$27.4bn, operating cash flow of US$4.6bn and customers in more than 175 countries. Over the past several years, Eaton has undergone significant growth and portfolio transformation, completing more than US$22bn of strategic acquisitions and divestitures while pursuing an ambitious growth agenda targeting a further 39% increase in revenue by 2030. During the past three years alone, revenue increased 32%, from US$20.8bn to US$27.4bn, while market capitalisation grew by approximately 150% to US$160bn.
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The challenge
Eaton’s continued growth, portfolio evolution and active M&A agenda created a rare opportunity for treasury to accelerate its own evolution. To support the company’s future ambitions, treasury enhanced its operating model, governance framework and technology capabilities, creating a globally connected strategic function capable of delivering enterprise-wide visibility, scalability, risk management and decision support.
Rather than pursuing a series of isolated improvements, treasury embarked on a comprehensive transformation programme spanning its operating model, governance framework, technology landscape and talent agenda. Underpinning every aspect of the journey was Eaton’s Culture Model of Think Big, Act Bold and Win Together, providing both the ambition and discipline required to reimagine how the function operated.
Importantly, the future-state vision was co-created by senior treasury leaders and the next generation of treasury talent. By engaging those responsible for leading and sustaining the transformation from the outset, treasury built early buy-in, accelerated adoption and fostered a shared sense of ownership across the organisation. This people‑first approach became a defining factor in the programme’s success.
The solution
To define the future-state vision, senior treasury leaders and emerging treasury talent came together for an intensive week-long workshop. The mandate was clear: think boldly and reimagine how treasury could best support Eaton’s future growth ambitions.
The transformation was organised around four interconnected pillars: global cash management, global risk management, governance and technology. Together, they evolved traditional regional approaches into a globally connected operating model, strengthening visibility and control, standardising execution and creating the scalability required to support Eaton’s continued growth, acquisition activity and portfolio evolution.
Global cash management: Eaton unified cash operations under a single global reporting structure and standardised treasury management system (TMS) usage and processes worldwide. Global banking RFPs, an in-house bank, supply chain finance, virtual cards and a virtual-account overlay solution simplified the banking landscape, strengthened liquidity management and reduced physical bank accounts and interest costs.
Global risk management: Eaton shifted foreign exchange and commodities hedging from site-level activity to an enterprise-wide programme. Strategy, processes and technology were redesigned to enable consistent global risk measurement, standardised execution and improved exposure visibility.
Governance: a Treasury Centre of Excellence was established to manage inter-company activities, netting, back office processes and bank account governance. A dedicated governance role strengthened SOX compliance, audit readiness and policy standardisation, while a bank account management platform integrated with HR systems automated oversight of accounts, signatories and e-banking access.
Technology: a dedicated treasury technology organisation centralised ownership of the global roadmap and budget. Working with internal teams, banks and fintechs, Eaton created a scalable architecture and a global payments and bank‑connectivity layer that standardised execution and reporting, strengthened controls, reduced manual work and accelerated acquisition integration.
“This recognition reflects the discipline and ambition with which our team approached this transformation – setting a higher standard, thinking boldly, and delivering together. It underscores the continuous improvement mindset now embedded across our treasury organisation and the tangible value it is creating for Eaton.”
Kirsten Park, SVP, Treasurer
Best practice and innovation
What distinguished Eaton’s approach was the decision to transform the operating model, technology architecture, governance framework and talent agenda together. Technology was deployed as an enabler of the future operating model, while automation, global standards and integrated data embedded stronger controls directly into day-to-day treasury activity.
Eaton invested in culture as intentionally as it invested in processes and technology. The Culture Model of Think Big, Act Bold and Win Together became the practical framework for delivery, encouraging the team to challenge established approaches, pursue transformation at enterprise scale and collaborate across organisational boundaries.
This people-first approach created early ownership, accelerated adoption and fostered a shared global identity across treasury. It also ensured that the transformation strengthened not only the function’s capabilities, but the experience, development and career opportunities of its people.
The integrated approach delivered measurable enterprise value:
Eliminated more than 500 bank accounts, reducing the global footprint by 33%.
Reduced exposure to non-relationship banks to 8% of total accounts by exiting more than 30 banking relationships globally.
Achieved 99% daily global cash visibility, a benchmark‑level outcome for an organisation of this scale.
Implemented a virtual bank account cash pooling structure, generating approximately US$2m in interest-cost savings.
Eliminated approximately 1,000 Excel files and 1,000 manual monthly journal entries, contributing to approximately US$2m in annual process savings.
Scaled Eaton’s global supply chain finance programme to more than 800 suppliers, delivering unprecedented working capital benefits.
Redeployed talent into higher-value roles while strengthening collaboration across finance, IT, compliance, audit and supply chain.
Beyond these results, the transformation changed the work people do and the careers they can build. Automation created capacity for higher-value roles, while global opportunities broadened experience, retained institutional knowledge and strengthened the next generation of treasury leaders.
In summary, Eaton redesigned the operating model, control framework, technology architecture and talent agenda together while supporting significant portfolio change. The result is a globally connected treasury function with near-total cash visibility, standardised execution and greater capacity to focus on the liquidity, risk, funding and integration decisions that matter most.
Rizwana Ameer
Global Network Banking Director, Ireland, Citi
Eaton’s global treasury team has focused on establishing effective, simplified processes, best in class cash concentration and an efficient working capital cycle. The team has strategically utilised all treasury levers to generate the required output and support Eaton’s growth story as a strongly resourced team. It has been a pleasure for the Citi team to collaborate in this critically important journey, ensuring that all challenges faced by the Eaton treasury team were well supported by Citi products. Citi’s supply chain finance solution significantly contributed to the progress the company needed to make. We look forward to supporting the team in many more milestone successes.
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John Murray
Executive Director, Payments, J.P. Morgan Payments
Eaton undertook a massive global treasury transformation to unify cash management, risk and technology across 175 countries and 331 entities, centralising operations and automating processes. Amid rapid expansion and significant M&A activity, Eaton engaged J.P. Morgan Payments to enhance cash pooling structures and reduce interest expense. Achieving 99% daily global cash visibility and positioned treasury as a strategic driver of future growth. We are thrilled to see Eaton recognised for their visionary approach and, on behalf of J.P. Morgan, we wholeheartedly congratulate them on this outstanding achievement.
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The Adam Smith Awards are the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury. The 2026 awards attracted 635 nominations. To find out more please visit treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards
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