Gearing Up With
ALEXANDER HAMILTON BEST PRACTICES:
OVERALL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Innovative and forward-looking describe all the treasuries that have won Alexander Ham- ilton Awards over the last 16 years but none more so than microsoft. With its fourth over- all excellence Award in 2011, the technology giant extends its lead in winning the most overall honors since the program began in 1996—when the first ceremony was held at the
Breakers in Palm Beach (for AHA trivia buffs). microsoft first won overall outstanding Treasury
Achievement in the third AHA competition in 1998.
Then-treasurer Jean-Francois Heitz (now
retired and an AHA judge for the last six years)
smiled on the cover of then-Treasury & Risk Management magazine. microsoft finance executives
would smile on two more AHA covers, in 2001
and 2003.
“resulted from two things: the widespread use
of the company’s considerable technology
expertise and a truly concerted team effort.” It
noted that the company’s treasury team of nearly
In 1998, T&RM wrote that microsoft’s “feats in
the competition”—two golds in the categories of
Investor Relations and Insurance, and silvers in
Cash management and Treasury Technology—
40 “grafted microsoft’s in-house technological
prowess onto its own functions and in so doing
turned their unit into a faster, fuller and even
more complete partner to the overall corporation.” Heitz said at the time: “We leverage technology to improve efficiencies—and to optimize
Photo by Rick Dahms
the risk and return [ratio].”
The big picture hasn’t changed much, except
“now you’ve got to run faster all the time,” says
George Zinn, who joined the company as a finan-
cial analyst in 1996 and became its treasurer and
corporate vice president in 2004. Now there are
479 staffers and vendors working in treasury and
collections around the world.
In 1998, Zinn co-led, with lori Jorgenson,
who now runs the risk management team, the
