On Thursday November 14th the winners of the 2024 Adam Smith Award Asia assembled at the Four Seasons Hotel Singapore for an evening of festivities. The Adam Smith Awards Asia is justifiably recognised throughout the globe as the industry benchmark for corporate treasury and finance excellence across Asia Pacific. This year’s awards programme, which opened for nominations in June, received an impressive 406 nominations across 19 categories. From this, our esteemed judges identified 66 Overall and Highly Commended Winners, honouring their innovation, creativity, collaboration and teamwork. This amounted to a grand celebration, with attendees travelling from across the region to collect their bespoke crystal awards, meet their fellow winners and enjoy a gala dinner alongside colleagues and banking partners.
This year marked the 11th anniversary of the Adam Smith Awards Asia. Sophie Jackson, Publisher & Head of Strategic Content at Treasury Today Group took to the stage to officially welcome everyone to this year’s celebration. “I want to take a moment to think about this community that you’re all a part of now and on our story at the Treasury Today Group,” she began.
Sophie went on to introduce Treasury Today Group’s Founder, Angela Berry and Chair, Richard Parkinson, inviting Angela onstage to share more on Treasury Today’s origins and development. Angela shared the inspiration behind founding the Treasury Today Group back in the mid-1990’s: “We felt strongly that those working in corporate treasury and the associated functions weren’t getting independent information from a reliable source. There was a huge gap, and I wanted to fill it and become the information broker for treasurers and senior finance professionals.”
Honouring treasury achievements
The highlight of the evening was the award presentation opened by Meg Coates, Publisher & Head of Operations at the Treasury Today Group. “Against a backdrop of evolving challenges corporate treasury departments across APAC have demonstrated real innovative thinking, showcasing some great and creative new solutions which we honour here tonight,” she announced.
Winners were then invited onstage to thunderous applause from their peers and colleagues. Some of our winners’ achievements are included below, but these represent just a small selection of this year’s success stories.
Best in Class Treasury Solution in ASEAN Overall Winner was awarded to Castrol, a subsidiary of BP, for their innovative solution that provides free insurance to motorcyclists in Asia. Amitabh Gupta, Head Growth Unit & E-Commerce/Digital Manager (ASPAC), accepted the award alongside his colleague, Chow Sem Lee, Cash and Banking Manager, Asia Pacific. “Winning the Adam Smith Award Asia is a tremendous honour for us at BP Castrol. It is a recognition of our efforts to extend the benefit of protection in the form of insurance to our loyal customers,” Amitabh reflected.
Air India emerged as the Overall Winner of the Best Transaction Management Solution category for their transformative approach to cash and liquidity management. Faced with the challenges of operating in 15 markets, Air India streamlined its treasury processes by reducing over 150 accounts to just 16. Harish Pai, Head, Treasury and Jeevan Kandpal, Associate Vice President, Finance collected the award on behalf of their company.
In the Best Sustainable Treasury Solution category, one of three recognised Highly Commended Winners was Viterra Agriculture. Commenting on the meaning of this award, Nicholas Yuen, Trader at the company said, “This accolade is a recognition of the dedication, hard work and innovative spirit of our team, and our collaboration to drive positive change.”
Chugai Pharmaceutical, based in Japan, claimed the Best Treasury Transformation Project Overall Winner award; whilst HOANG DUC Pharmaceutical & Medical Supplies, one of the first private pharmaceutical distribution companies in Vietnam, was recognised as Overall Winner in the Harnessing the Power of Technology category.
Nyet-Sian Kiew, APAC Regional Lead, Treasury Services Group and James Hall, APAC Assistant Treasurer at Cargill Asia Pacific Treasury collected the Overall Winner award for Best Emerging Technology Solution. Cargill successfully implemented blockchain technology to achieve 24/7 cross-border, real-time fund movements between its treasury hubs.
“Payments using blockchain technology is a relatively new development and we believe this technology has the potential to revolutionise the industry if it can be successfully adopted across a multi-bank network. We are excited to be one of the pioneers in this space and hope this can pave the way for other corporates and banks to join this initiative and for the blockchain network to achieve greater scalability and further adoption,” says Nyet-Sian.
A stellar representation from Shell
Shell stood out as one of the evening’s most celebrated winners, securing several awards across diverse categories. They were honoured with Overall Winner in Best Risk Management Solution and Best in Class Treasury Solution in India, as well as securing the Best Funding Solution Overall Winner award through their joint venture with CNOOC. The scale of their accomplishments highlighted Shell’s collaborative efforts across teams in Singapore, India and Pakistan, showcasing how cross-border teamwork can drive success.
Among individual accolades, the Rising Star award went to Alfred Kiong, Treasury Manager at Shell Treasury Centre East. Since joining the company in 2016, Alfred has played a crucial role in optimising funding solutions and streamlining operations in complex regulatory environments.
Accepting his award, Alfred said, “I am honoured to be here this evening accepting this individual award, yet fully knowing that this is not an individual effort, it is actually a very big team effort which comprises people of various functions to help push the projects through.”
Corporate Treasurer of the Year
The award for Corporate Treasurer of the Year was presented to Onur Kolat, Head of Corporate Finance and Treasury at Arçelik Hitachi. Onur led his team to create a new liquidity structure in just six months, that replaced legacy systems and paper-intensive processes with a modern solution that helped free up US$150m in restricted currencies across APAC.
“Thank you so much for this incredible recognition,” Onur said whilst collecting his award onstage. “I am very proud to share this moment with you all.”
Judges’ Choice
Our Judges’ Choice is a special award that allows the judges to recognise a solution that does not fit into our defined categories, and this year the award was presented to Mahindra and Mahindra. The Indian automobile manufacturing company created the ‘ONE MAHINDRA’ approach that successfully streamlined and standardised bank charges across multiple sectors within Mahindra and Mahindra and its group companies.
Manaswini Goel, Head Group Corporate Finance and Treasury accepted the award on behalf of her company. “For the first time ever, the entire group came together and did something that was completely unthinkable earlier, and did it in record time also,” she said. “I think this gives us a lot of motivation to continue our treasury transformation journey, so thank you so much.”
A team effort
The awards presentation ended with the most highly anticipated category of the evening, Treasury Today Asia’s Top Treasury Team 2024. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company, received the Highly Commended award for their comprehensive treasury transformation.
The Overall Winner in this category was Lenovo, whose treasury team successfully navigated the company through a period of financial challenges. Their efforts not only improved Lenovo’s credit rating but also positioned the company for sustainable growth. Accepting the award on behalf of her team, Koh Ser Mein, Executive Director of Global Treasury said, “I am incredibly honoured to be receiving this award on behalf of my team. I think the award is a reflection of the dedication, innovation and collective strength.”
The evening concluded with laughter, networking and a vibrant atmosphere as winners took to the stage for celebratory photos. Guests left with a sense of pride and inspiration, reflecting on the accomplishments of their peers and the shared success of the treasury community.
As the celebrations wind down, the Treasury Today Group looks forward to spotlighting the achievements of all winners through detailed case studies, set to be published across our digital platform in January 2025.
Nominations for the 12th season of the Adam Smith Awards Asia will open on June 2nd 2025.
