Reaching the Pinnacle

AFP Annual Pinnacle Awards Seeking Submissions

The unprecedented economic turmoil this past year has had one unintended effect on corporate treasury—a bumper crop of innovative solutions to improve liquidity and manage risk. That should make the 2009 AFP Pinnacle Awards, sponsored by Wachovia, a Wells Fargo company, the most competitive year ever. The AFP Pinnacle Awards recognize excellence in treasury and finance.

“There’s got to be a lot of corporate treasurers out there who have done a lot of innovative things in the last year to deal with the economy,” says Craig Martin, Director, Treasury Practice Lead for AFP. “Have you become more efficient? Have you improved a process or reduced costs?”

How to Submit a Pinnacle Entry

Click here to submit an entry to the 2009 Pinnacle Awards. Deadline is May 29. Contact Ernie Humphrey, Director of Treasury Services, at ehumphrey@AFPonline.org or 301-961-8611 with any questions. Treasury and finance departments of companies, organizations or government entities, regardless of size, industry or location, can enter. There are no entry fees. Affiliation with AFP or any other professional association is not required. The treasurer or CFO of the applying organization must validate all entries, and every applicant must agree to be interviewed.

“Winning entries are concise, clear and tangible, and they demonstrate direct results from the initiative,” says Martin. “It really is a matter of stating the problem, the solution, and the result.”

The Pinnacle Awards feature three award categories: strategy, innovation and risk.

• Strategy—Treasury as a Strategic Partner. Winning solutions demonstrate the value treasury can create as a strategic player through capital structure initiatives, corporate growth deal structures, and business unit and project decision-making programs.

• Innovation—Leading Advances in Treasury and Finance. Winning solutions demonstrate creative organizational structures, innovative technologies and processes, and performance metrics that are on the cutting edge of treasury and finance.

• Risk—Advanced Risk Management Methodologies. Winning solutions demonstrate advanced risk management methodologies that reduce organizational risk related to financial risks, or demonstrate internal controls and compliance, fraud prevention, business continuity and disaster recovery plans.

Note: The Pinnacle Awards recognize original thinking and initiative; turn-key vendor solutions will not be considered.

Martin said Strategy submissions typically receive capital structure deals, while the Innovation category focuses on process-oriented solutions and Risk receives hedging entries. “It’s all about visibility to cash around the globe,” he says. “How did you manage short-term funds? How did your hedging program perform in this extreme volatility?”

The AFP Pinnacle Award Ceremony

AFP Pinnacle Category Award Winners will be honored at the 2009 AFP Annual Conference in San Francisco, Oct. 4, in front of more than 6,000 treasury and finance professionals. The awards will be presented by a senior Wachovia executive in concert with the President of AFP. An AFP Pinnacle Grand Prize Winner will be selected from the category winners and be awarded a special honor, plus a $10,000 charitable donation by Wachovia to the charity of their choice. AFP provides for up to two complimentary conference registrations, transportation and lodging for each of the category winners.

Winners will present their solutions during the Annual Conference. AFP’s publications staff will help the winners develop their entries into articles that will be published in an upcoming issue of AFP Exchange. In addition, each winner will receive one CTP/CCM credit for each page of the published articles.