The Winter Olympics may be over for another four years. But for treasury teams around the world, the competition is just getting started: nominations are currently open for this year’s prestigious Adam Smith Awards programme.
Since 2008, the Adam Smith Awards have celebrated the best and brightest in corporate treasury and finance, with last year’s Awards attracting a record 450 nominations from 30 countries.
So what does it take to win our most coveted award, Treasury Today’s Top Treasury Team?
Exceptional achievements
This year’s Adam Smith Awards programme features 20 categories spanning a wide range of treasury activities, from funding and investments to cash management and technology.
Open to any corporate treasury team that has made an outstanding contribution to its organisation in the last 12-18 months, our Top Treasury Team award is open to treasury teams that have demonstrated excellence in any area of treasury, from integrating an acquisition to completing a groundbreaking treasury transformation project.
Crucially, the award is intended to showcase excellence across the whole team – whether that’s a standalone achievement by the treasury team itself, or a broader team effort involving cross-functional collaboration.
Either way, winning solutions should embody everything the Adam Smith Awards programme aims to celebrate: best practice, innovation, resilience – and most importantly, working together to achieve something extraordinary.
Driving transformation
These qualities were displayed in abundance by last year’s Top Treasury Team, global healthcare company Viatris.
The company’s global treasury team was no stranger to the Adam Smith Awards: Viatris won the Best Foreign Exchange Solution category in 2023, and was a Highly Commended Winner in Best Treasury Transformation Project in 2024. Following this success, the team has continued to build on its transformation with multiple ambitious projects.
Notable achievements included building a treasury Centre of Excellence (COE), repaying more than US$10bn in debt, optimising cash pooling and bank account management, and centralising FX risk management. And underpinning all these achievements was exemplary teamwork, with Head of Global Treasury John Miraglia noting “The treasury team we have built has truly driven our transformation.”
Award-winning teams
Over the years, this prestigious category has recognised the success of many other leading treasury teams around the world.
In 2016, for example, the Top Treasury Team accolade went to Etihad Airways, with a multi-disciplined programme covering payment processing, liquidity management, collections and supply chain finance. As Group Treasurer Ricky Thirion commented at the time, the award “validates the work that we’ve done as a team, not just to us but to our senior management and to our board and our shareholders.”
Honeywell’s treasury team took up the mantle in 2019, in an ambitious project that included carving out two independent companies within nine months – and creating two new treasury structures from scratch. Jim Colby, Vice President and Treasurer, noted “Executing two simultaneous spins in such a short timeframe was one of the most challenging assignments of my career.”
And in 2021, the winning team was Alphabet, with the team pursuing a host of transformational initiatives, despite the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. Juan Rajlin, Vice President & Treasurer, explained that while the company’s growth has often left treasury playing catch up, “With this ambitious treasury transformation, anchored by several large strategic projects, the team is creating a vibrant and innovative foundation for the next 20 years.”
The stories of these exceptional treasury teams – and many others – can be found on our website. So could your team join their ranks in 2026? If your team has achieved something special, visit https://treasurytoday.com/adam-smith-awards/ to submit your nomination by 19th March.
