Five special guests joined us for our inaugural event. Each individual is "best in class" and they collaborated both publicly and behind the scenes to give our students a really special weekend.
Thanks to each of these folks for leading sessions, participating in panel discussions, developing and testing cases, interacting with students, promoting our event on their own platforms, and helping put out many fires that nobody will ever know were burning!
Jon runs ExcelCampus.com and he's all about making Excel easier and more fun. As a Microsoft MVP for 10 years, with over 500,000 YouTube subscribers, and a regular host of the FMWC events, his love for Excel is probably obvious.
But what really drives him? Helping people. At the heart of his mission is a genuine passion for helping the community harness the power of Excel. By eliminating mundane tasks, Jon strives to make Excel not only a tool for efficiency but also a canvas for fun and creativity. With innovative Excel add-ins and insightful online courses, he's paving the way for a more efficient and enjoyable spreadsheet experience.
Britt is a finance transformation leader at Unum, currently holding the role of AVP, Finance Enablement. In this role, she leverages technical and problem-solving skills to develop the finance transformation strategy, support the finance technology portfolio, & execute on modernizing processes.
As a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries since 2018, Britt has held a diverse set of finance and actuarial roles. Throughout her 10 years at Unum, she has been an avid user of Excel and in 2022 she started participating in the Microsoft Excel World Championship, taking a top-4 place in the finals.
Britt graduated from Lee University in 2014 with a degree in Mathematics. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Brett, and two young daughters, Piper and Madi.
Diarmuid Early is the founder of Early Days Consulting and a partner in The Golden Company, specializing in financial modeling, reporting and automation.
Before starting Early Days, he worked as a business manager at Deutsche Bank for ten years in New York and London and started his career as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in London.
Along with his industry experience, he has a PhD in computer science and earned a CFA charter, which gives him a unique perspective as a financial modeler and trainer.
Diarmuid is a two-time world financial modeling champion (2014 and 2021), and four-time runner up.
Craig Hatmaker founded Beyond Excel (BXL) in 2006. Years before Power Query’s debut, BXL pioneered methods to import data from enterprise systems into Excel using VBA, ADO, and SQL. Excel advanced and so has BXL’s mission. BXL’s is now focused on bringing the revolutionary power of dynamic arrays to Excel modelers of any skill level. This is made possible by 5g which BXL launched at EuSpRIG’s annual conference in July of 2023.
Craig started as a solopreneur creating financial systems and forecasting mortgage portfolios for small businesses and non-profits. He then joined the corporate ranks working for large international manufactures, leading US logistic companies, and even local governments. He attributes his ability to use Excel to mine financial systems, find underperforming business units, model remediation financial impacts, and to manage remediation projects for his eventual rise through the ranks to C level executive.
Laurence runs The Golden Company, which provides consulting services such as Private Equity value creation, supply chain optimization, data analytics, and corporate strategy. His publicly traded clients have outperformed the stock market 3-to-1.
Laurence is the 2022 and 2023 Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC) champion. He is also the current US ranked #1, North America ranked #1, and World ranked #1 in the FMWC financial modeling standings, and is the only competitor to ever finish a season with a perfect score.
Laurence developed his analytical skills as a Wall Street quant and his consulting skills at Strategy&. Originally from New York City, he is a CFA Charterholder based in Boston and has an MBA from MIT. He is proud to have zero Microsoft MVP awards and zero Financial Modeling certifications.
He is interested in competitive endeavors with asymmetric outcomes (e.g., college / MBA admissions, careers, income / wealth inequality, sports, business strategy, etc.).