On 23rd June, top treasury talent from across EMEA and the Americas gathered at the iconic St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London for one of our most eagerly anticipated events of the year, the Adam Smith Awards.
Now in its 18th year, the quality and number of nominations from some of the world’s most successful, innovative and fast-growing corporations, organisations and government entities continues to grow. This year saw a record-breaking 454 nominations from 30 countries; our judges carefully evaluated each submission to select outstanding winners across 18 diverse categories of treasury achievement.
After months of waiting, the winning and highly commended treasury teams and their banking partners and service providers came onto the stage to collect their crystal award from Treasury Today Group’s Sophie Jackson and Meg Coates.
“The Adam Smith Awards programme is and remains the jewel in our crown,” said Jackson. “The evening is a chance to celebrate success and shine a light on treasury best practice.” She also shared how Treasury Today Group is growing and expanding in APAC and the Americas, building on its community spirit and sense of purpose. Afterwards guests enjoyed a delicious celebratory dinner in the hotel’s listed dining room under a soaring, vaulted ceiling, famed for its Victorian Gothic revival architecture.
The Adam Smith Awards are an opportunity for networking and a chance for corporate treasurers to receive their awards in person in the company of their peers, colleagues and partners. It’s a public recognition of treasury, a profession that is increasingly coming into the limelight. Amid the friendly competition and rivalry, the awards also underscore the supportive and collaborative nature of treasury as a profession, visible in the enthusiastic applause from around the room for all the winning teams.
The event began with guests climbing the majestic Grand Staircase to the drinks reception that spilled out onto the balcony in the summer evening, serenaded by a live band. Meg Coates extended a warm welcome to everyone. Next guests made their way to the dining rooms to receive their crystal awards. Some of their achievements are included below, but these represent just a small selection of this year’s success stories. During our Adam Smith Awards season, we will be sharing in-depth case studies on all our 2025 winners, which will be published across our channels in September.
One of the most exciting characteristics of the awards is the recognition of the next generation of companies and upcoming treasury talent. Etsy, the American e-commerce company that sells handmade and vintage items, won Best Cash Pooling Solution for its new-in-market notional pooling strategy that is a blueprint for marketplace treasury operations in regulated environments.
Angela Hobart, Director of Strategic Finance, Octopus Energy, won raucous applause for winning this year’s Rising Star award for her growing reputation in the company (and wider industry) where she oversees debt and equity fundraising, capital allocation, FP&A, business partnering, treasury and investor relations. Angela’s passion to mitigate climate change drives her determination to grow, innovate and disrupt at a company at the forefront of the energy transition. “When I moved to the UK not only was I new to the energy industry but also to basic concepts [in treasury]” she said in her acceptance speech. She went on to thank the “brilliant people” she worked with at Octopus, and the company’s banking partners for “making the impossible possible.” This year’s award ceremony was notable for the prominence of regional corporates from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Representatives from the government of Rwanda collected Highly Commended for an ESG-linked debt framework, and Coca-Cola Nigeria was recognised for an innovative FX risk management framework that protects against losses in the volatile currency market. The treasury team at Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group led by Dheeraj Parmar won Best in Class Treasury Solution in the Middle East for a treasury transformation that has introduced an IHB structure, bank rationalisation and cash pooling alongside a new treasury management system.
The role of technology and the ability of corporate treasury to integrate and, perhaps most importantly, keep up with all it has to offer, is recognised in our Harnessing the Power of Technology category. The fact that our venue – originally part of the Victorian-era railway station and home to the first hydraulic lifts and revolving doors in the UK – was also ahead of its time seemed especially fitting. This year the award was scooped by FedEx for a new blockchain solution that has minimised trapped cash, reduced reliance on the company’s overdraft facilities, and gained the ability to quickly shift funds regardless of time or day.
Blockchain technology featured in other notable winning solutions too. Heiko Nix, Global Head of Cash Management at German multinational Siemens came on stage to collect Best Payments Solution for overseeing the integration of blockchain to support the real-time transfer of liquidity flows for treasury payments and intercompany payments at the company.
Advertising group WPP, where treasury is led by Alex Ashby, was on stage twice for Best Sustainable Treasury Solution and our Judges’ Choice, recognised for leveraging Open AI and tech prowess to develop a Treasurer Bot. The AI-powered tool uses proprietary WPP treasury data, combined with web and internal content, to emulate the role of a corporate treasurer.
This year’s Highly Commended Corporate Treasurer of the Year award went to A.P. Møller-Maersk’s Netta Christensen for her prowess managing cash and liquidity at the shipping and logistics giant. Barış Gökalp, Global Head of Treasury for Turkish glass group Şişecam received the overall award in this category. Barış leads a treasury team of 20, managing and overseeing the treasury operations of 44 plants in 14 countries across the US, Europe and Asia. He is also a member of the management board of Blockchain Turkey Platform, a non-profit organisation promoting the adoption of blockchain technology. In another accolade, he founded and is Chairman of the Turkish Association of Corporate Treasurers (T-ACT) where his passion for driving change, developing analytical skills, and advancing the treasury profession was also recognised.
This year we announced the winner of our coveted Top Treasury Team Award 2025 on the evening. It was scooped by Viatris, represented by Dublin-based VP and Assistant Treasurer Ciaran Fegan and his team, in recognition of the firm’s ongoing treasury transformation that has prioritised efficiency, divestment of non-core assets and re-investment to power growth ever since the pharmaceutical company was formed in 2020 following the merger of Mylan N.V. and Pfizer’s legacy business, Upjohn. Awards were also collected by our two Highly Commended winners Flutter Entertainment, the Irish American multinational sports betting and gambling company and engineering group Dowlais Group.
When Ciaran Fegan, VP and Assistant Treasurer at Viatris came on stage to collect the evening’s final – and arguably mostly coveted – award for Top Treasury Team his speech captured the essence of the whole evening. “This award is a testament to hard work and dedication the team put in to get treasury to where it is today. I want to thank everyone at Treasury Today Group for their continued support, and for an evening which is a great opportunity for treasurers to come together and share ideas and learn. I also want to thank all our partners on this journey, especially Citi and J.P. Morgan,” he said.
As the celebrations ended, the winners and their partners reflected on their achievements and successes in an uplifting end to an evening that carried on late into the night. As part of our Adam Smith Awards programme, we will produce case studies on all our award winners and these will be published on our website, in our Treasury Insights newsletter and on our LinkedIn channel. We look forward to sharing the best practices and success of our winners throughout the Adam Smith Awards season.
The Adam Smith Awards is globally recognised as the industry benchmark for best practice and innovation in corporate treasury, and this year was no exception. Thank you to everyone who nominated, and those who attended an event that bought our formidable community together once again.
