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Growing up in Waterford, south-east Ireland, I was always good at maths. I first used Excel at university in Cork while studying maths and physics. We used a software programme called Mathematica but it was expensive, so at home I used Excel as a workaround to do the same tasks, using it to generate, say, a list of prime or Fibonacci numbers.
After that, I worked at a consultancy company in London and started using it more conventionally. I soon became the go-to person for people who had random questions about the software, such as how to use it to figure out how many trucks are needed to transport a certain amount of packages.
Later, I moved to New York to work at a bank, and in 2013 a colleague told me about a competition called ModelOff, which used Excel to build financial forecasts. There were 16 finalists in a conference room in one of Microsoft’s offices, all sitting at desks. It was a closed event and not very interesting to look at – a world away from what it eventually turned into.
I won ModelOff once before the competition ended in 2019. Then some new kids on the block launched the Financial Modelling World Cup in 2020, and I won that twice. They decided to make it more visual and fun, including hosting head-to-head battles with a real-time leaderboard on a giant screen. They started putting these on YouTube and some videos got hundreds of thousands of views.
It soon rebranded as the Microsoft Excel world championship. ESPN started broadcasting it live, and by 2023 the final was being held in Las Vegas in a proper esports arena with a live audience. That year more than 500 competitors took part in the “road to Las Vegas” qualifiers.
There are lots of nerdy types, as you might expect – including me – but some less obvious ones: there’s a powerlifting champion and a few Ironman and ultramarathon finishers. It’s a niche thing in some ways but, then again, Excel is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. I’ve heard lots of people say they have watched the championships with a friend who wasn’t into Excel at all, but really enjoyed it because of the excitement from the commentators.
I find some of the theatrics a little odd. I wouldn’t have come up with giving a wrestling-style belt to the winner or asking players to walk down a glowing “hype tunnel”. But it seems to work: there’s more interest in it than ever. It’s now harder every year as a result, but the community is amazing.
The mood for the 2025 final in Vegas was electric, with 500 people in the crowd cheering like crazy. People at the bottom of the board are in danger of being eliminated, so it’s always a really tense and charged atmosphere. I was nervous for the semi-finals and final. The quarters had gone well, but I have a track record of peaking too soon.
When the semi-final went well, I was sure there was no way lightning would strike a third time. But when I saw the instructions for the final case – using Excel to fold a virtual sheet of origami – it felt like something I could do. I won, defeating a three-time champion, who’s an actuary from Australia. It was really exciting. I have been called the LeBron James of spreadsheets, but I try not to take myself too seriously.
My prize was $5,000, which I donated to the Against Malaria Foundation. The organisers have big ambitions: its founder has a vision of handing over a $1m prize cheque. I mostly saw that as pie in the sky thinking – but I had also thought the idea of Excel becoming a popular esport was unlikely, too.
You can have a lot more fun with Excel than people realise. I have built a model of a TV gameshow for a company to help them figure out how to budget their cash rewards. It didn’t get commissioned in the end, but they did build a set and film a pilot with Carol Vorderman. I also build models to help make my picks for betting in football. And I created an Excel file that can play Battleship better than most people. But the biggest thing that makes it fun, and keeps me coming back, is the people. They are smart, interesting, curious, friendly and welcoming – living proof that, despite its reputation, Excel is far from boring.
As told to Daniel Dylan Wray
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