For nearly two decades, the Adam Smith Awards have stood as one of the most celebrated and rigorous global annual award programmes in corporate treasury and finance, recognised as the industry benchmark for best practice.
They shine a spotlight on the prowess, innovation and remarkable, and evolving role of corporate finance in helping companies navigate complex landscapes.
This vision and purpose is brought to life each year through two glittering celebrations, the Adam Smith Awards dinner in London and the Adam Smith Awards Asia dinner in Singapore, as well as a series of in-depth case studies and interviews with our winners to showcase the achievements which are shaping the future of the profession.
Vision and impact
The awards were launched in 2008 to highlight the pivotal role of treasury in corporate success and to create a vibrant forum for treasurers to witness best practice in action and discover new and detailed strategies that add value and deliver to shareholders.
We wanted to create an opportunity for global finance teams to come together and learn from the best. True to that vision, over the years our awards have highlighted the pivotal workings of the finance team at some of the most successful corporations in the world from Google to Walmart, Alibaba, Tencent, Samsung, Sinopec and Toyota, to name just a few of some 800 winners over the years.
The ceremony, and our wider award coverage of feature articles and interviews, is a chance to glean insights and connect with diverse winners from over 65 countries across the world that have been chosen from, on average, 900 submissions across both programmes.
For our corporate community, winning an award has become a chance to promote the role of treasury and finance within their organisation, be it improving efficiency, reducing costs or managing risk. It is also a rare chance to publicly endorse a profession that is often behind the scenes, whilst also recognising the collaboration with their valued partner banks, fintechs and consultants.
Winning an award is an opportunity for a smaller company or organisation to elevate their name – and encourage incumbents to up their game. And in a bellwether of corporate growth, over the years our awards have tipped emerging companies and the role of the finance function powering that growth like Octopus Energy, foodpanda and online art marketplace Masterworks, to name just a few.
“This award is a testament to the 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,” said Ciaran Fegan, VP and Assistant Treasurer at healthcare group Viatris, winner of Top Treasury Team speaking on stage at the 2025 awards.
The ongoing mission
When we first launched the awards, we initially had 18 winners across 11 categories focused on treasury fundamentals such as cash/liquidity management, FX and risk management, funding and investing.
Today, these categories continue to attract the most submissions, but our award slate has expanded and adapted to reflect the evolution of the finance function into a strategic business partner, and this year we celebrated 61 winners across 18 categories.
In response to the rapid advancement of technology like host-to-host connectivity, API solutions and more recently AI, the awards celebrate companies that have successfully integrated technology solutions to support foreign exchange, cash flow forecasting, invoice netting and much more.
The awards capture and celebrate enduring trends like the role of financial leadership teams integrating risks like cyber and climate, for example. But they also capture the zeitgeist of the year – whatever that is. In a specific response to the Covid pandemic in 2022, we ran Best Crisis Management. Won, amongst others, by Singapore Airlines for digitising a rights issue that allowed the company to still raise money during lockdown. Expect new awards to reflect emerging trends in payments, or a spike in capital markets activity, ahead.
Our coveted Top Treasury Team and Treasury Transformation awards will continue to reward those rolling out far-reaching solutions for their resilience and best practice. These awards offer an incentive to keep going to those deep in the weeds of gruelling, multi-year transformations and is an opportunity to celebrate those people who care enough to keep trying until they finally succeed.
Witness how Microsoft won Highly Commended Best Cash Management Solution on route to winning the coveted Top Treasury Team a few years later in recognition of the team reaching the finishing line on a long-term project. Or biopharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb winning multiple awards over the years until it finally scooped Top Treasury Team in 2024 for an iterative overhaul focused on automation. “[We won this] award because of the scale of innovation touching all areas of treasury,” said Vivek Agarwal, Senior Director – Finance Technology and AI at the pharmaceutical group.
Adam Smith Awards Asia was introduced in 2014 (six years after we launched) to recognise the growing importance of corporates in APAC. Our awards will continue to evolve to capture and chart the changing and strategic role of the finance teams fuelling corporate growth in Asia where country regulations often push companies towards specific solutions.
In 2014 there were 39 winners across 15 categories. In 2024 we received over 400 nominations and celebrated 66 winners across 19 categories that included insights on key regional trends in cash management and liquidity like ‘follow the sun’ solutions, the cross-border cash centralisation technique, as well as Asian companies’ prominence in the digital economy.
Celebrating a people business
The Adam Smith Awards are unique because they are an affirmation that finance is, ultimately, a people business. It’s visible in the enthusiastic applause that award winners receive from colleagues and peers during the celebratory dinner and the ringing endorsements via our wider network. But the award slate also, deliberately, celebrates the team and remarkable individuals whose courage and creativity serve as an inspiration to others to climb the ladder.
Top Treasury Team is designed to reflect the scope and ability of the team that sits behind the corporate finance function from CFO to Group Treasurer and Cash Manager, as well as functions outside treasury – legal, tax, supply chain, procurement and accounting. The award spotlights how by working together these finance professionals can address multiple solutions within a single nomination and often reflects a multi-year project.
Over the year’s we’ve also recognised exceptional individuals like AstraZeneca’s former Head of Treasury Operations Patricia Greenfield who won Corporate Treasurer of the Year in 2013, and Microsoft’s George Zinn, who won the same award in 2021. And for the first time in the awards history, in 2023, we presented a Special Recognition award to Anita Mehra from Microsoft for her outstanding services to the industry as a whole and to driving innovation in corporate treasury.
One of the most memorable individual accolades went to Martin Schlageter, Head of Treasury Operations at pharmaceutical giant Roche. In 2024 he won a Special Recognition award on the eve of his retirement to acknowledge his 30-year career in treasury that reshaped Roche’s world-class global treasury and cash management organisation and left an indelible mark on the treasury landscape in the EMEA region.
Our programme will also continue to capture the quirkier side of the profession too. In 2012 we introduced Judges’ Choice. This discretionary award aims to recognise submissions that are worth particular attention, and that demonstrate something extraordinary and unique – treasury solutions that don’t quite fit a particular category. It opened the door to 2014 winner Etihad Airways for an innovative strategy that involved securing take-off and landing slots at London Heathrow as the underlying security to the transaction. Hotel Chocolat has also won for its novel strategy to raise finance by borrowing money from its customers and paying their returns in chocolate.
“The relationship with our customers is one of the most powerful things that we have,” said Co-Founder Peter Harris, speaking at the time. “Our customers like us as a business and want us to be around for years to come. When we reached out to them, we raised over £4m.”
Have you got what it takes?
The programme’s starting gun fires when hopeful contenders submit detailed entries across the categories to a tight deadline. For those at the coalface of the gruelling task of award submissions and thoughtfully writing 1000-odd words in response to challenging questions, a winning solution requires key criteria.
Our judges look for evidence of best practice and innovation, in-house developed solutions rather than off the shelf, and evidence of collaboration between the corporate and service partner is important. As is teamwork across the corporate that pulls in multiple skills across but also procurement, legal and tax.
Solutions across multiple geographies can also score higher than a single country solution, and the quantitative and qualitative benefits are important. But every company has a fair chance if their financial leadership team can demonstrate a growth mindset, preparedness to change, resilience, agility and impact.
Weeks of meticulous scoring and judging by our expert panel is followed by Sophie Jackson, CEO of Treasury Today and Meg Coates, Publisher & Operations Director, announcing the winners online. After the celebratory dinner, we produce detailed write ups and interviews with the winners to bookend the season.
Looking to the future
In 2024 we launched our Future Treasury & Finance Leaders Forums, creating a global platform to bring together our Adam Smith Award alumni across the globe with other industry experts to explore best practice for a modern generation of corporate leaders both in terms of technical excellence, personal trajectories and essential skillsets. Initially piloting in three countries – Singapore, London and New York – this initiative has since grown to encompass more regions. In 2026, these forums will take place in ten countries across the globe.
We will continue to evolve this prestigious annual awards programme into 2026 and beyond, recognising excellence and best practice in corporate finance, sharing knowledge, ambition and the belief that together, anything is possible.
