Selecting the winners of Treasury Today Group’s Adam Smith Awards Asia is always a major milestone and highlight of our year. This year’s winners, recently announced by Treasury Today Group’s Sophie Jackson, Publisher & Head of Strategic Content, and Meg Coates, Publisher & Head of Operations, are no exception.
Nominations poured in with over 430 submissions from across the region. Above all, this year’s winners showcase the continued role of corporate treasury as a strategic business partner.
The award for Treasury Today Asia’s Top Treasury Team 2023 is awarded to Nestlé, the world’s largest, most diversified food and beverages company. Nestlé Treasury Centre Asia-Pacific (NTC-AP) under Felicia Foong, Regional Treasurer manages the treasury activities covering over 20 markets and businesses of more than 100 entities in Asia Pacific. NTC-AP has set the benchmark for the industry through its leadership in adopting treasury technology and models resulting in automation, process simplification and optimisation.
Our Judges’ Choice this year recognises Lokesh Reddy, Head of Treasury at Quest Global Services for the innovative role he played in acting for the company in a large funding requirement. Corporate treasurers would usually appoint a lead banker to arrange and then syndicate the facility. However, Lokesh took charge of the discussion and negotiation with his panel of bankers without the need for a lead syndication arranger.
Our judges were also impressed with the nomination submitted on behalf of Rani Misra, APAC Treasurer & Global Head of Insurance at Cargill. Her achievements are recognised as our 2023 Corporate Treasurer of the Year with Nitin Sethi, Head Treasury Emerging Markets at Bridgestone India Private Ltd recognised as Highly Commended in the category.
This year’s A Rising Star is Adnan Bora Baykal, APAC Lead, Corporate Finance and Treasury at Arcelik Hitachi.
We have evidenced increased collaboration with banking, fintech and other solution partners in many of this years’ successful companies’ submissions. AI-enabled solutions are also featured more prominently than in previous years. Other companies we recognise include Coupang Corporation as Overall Winner in the Best Transaction Management Solution category, Storskogen Group in Best Cash Pooling Solution, Autoliv China in Best Supply Chain Solution and Lenovo in our Best Funding Solution category. We have also seen evidence of blue financing as further demonstration of the importance some companies are placing on sustainability. Our Best Treasury Transformation Project category recognises four huge treasury transformation journeys with Thales Group awarded Overall Winner; our three Highly Commended companies are GE Healthcare, IHH Healthcare Berhad and Hitachi International.
In the technology categories, Sony Group is Overall Winner in our Harnessing the Power of Technology Solution category and Merck is our Overall Winner in the Best Emerging Technology Solution category.
The country/region specific categories recognise TE Connectivity, Walmart and PT Global Tiket Network in the Best in Class Treasury Solution categories in India, the PRC and ASEAN respectively.
Announcing our winners is the first step in our Adam Smith Awards Asia season that will include a celebratory awards dinner in Singapore on November 16th. We will also produce case studies on all the award-winning solutions, which will be promoted extensively across our digital channels.
The Adam Smith Awards Asia is globally recognised as the industry benchmark for best practice and exceptional solutions in corporate treasury, and this year is no exception. We look forward to celebrating our winners’ achievements and to bringing our formidable community together once again.
