The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Meet the Excel Spreadsheet World Champion

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Michael Jarman is a British financial modeller living in Toronto, and he's also the Microsoft Excel World Champion. He joins us in studio to talk about the weird and wonderful world of competitive Excel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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the Microsoft Excel World Championships, where a British financial modeler based in Toronto was crowned the new champion. And what, pray tell, is this championship all about? Well, let's ask the man himself. His name is Michael Jarman and he is director of financial modeling at Operus and he's the Excel spreadsheet world champion. Michael it's great to meet you. Oh thank you very much it's great to be on. I can tell from that accent you're not from here. No it's been a yeah in the media a few places have forgotten that yeah I'm not actually Canadian yet I'm hopefully applying this year but yes

originally from the UK but I've been in Toronto for about eight years now. Eight years now okay and where do you live? Just downtown. Downtown? Yeah. Okay. How did you get to be so proficient with Microsoft Excel? It's a good question.

So I think at Opus it's pretty much what I've done over the last 10 years. Now not so much. Now, as in many jobs, you get a bit more senior, you sort of do less of the day-to-day modeling work, but certainly for the first five, six years of my career was pretty much what I was doing day in, day out. So yeah, if you spend hundreds, thousands of hours doing something, you eventually get pretty good at it. How did you know there was a competition for people like you who are good at this? Yeah, so there was an older competition called Model Off, which I've also won a few years

ago. And I found out through that because one of my colleagues had also won it previously when I'd just started, the one we called Hillary Smart. So I found out about the weird and wonderful world of competitive Excel through her, but that whole competition died in 2020 and it sort of very much was much lower key. Like people just go to a Microsoft boardroom and essentially do an exam. It's nothing like what we have today. So yeah, this new competition, like a lot of the old people are in it,

sort of familiar with sort of the people who set it up, so we found out that way and yeah, now we're on television. Well I was gonna say, the old one was not televised but this one is. Yes. So now you're a star. Apparently. Shall we see you doing your thing? Absolutely. Let's do that. Sheldon, roll it if you would. Let's get a cheer for Michael Jarman on screen. What's he got going on? I mean, he's doing well. Is anything going to happen?

Can anybody throw a Leroy Jenkins out in the last few seconds? Leroy Jenkins! Come on Leroy! Michael Jarman! All those years of training. Yes. This moment in World Championship. You're a bit of a rock star there, dude. Yeah, it's nice being in sort of, even though it's not like, it's a few hundred people

in the arena and hopefully we'll get bigger as the years go, but it's nice being full of people who are sort of as passionate about this sort of thing as I am. What was the moment like? Yeah, it was incredible. I've sort of been putting quite a bit of pressure on myself to win. Like I'd come second two of the last three years, got knocked out in the semis the other year. So I've always been quite a bit of pressure on myself to win. I'd come second two of the last three years,

not got knocked out in the semis the other year. So I've always been there or thereabouts and the field is constantly improving at like a vast rate. Like what people do now, like the top 20 would do now would win two or three years ago. So yeah. Okay, I got to follow up on that because can I make a horrible admission to you here?

Yeah. I don't know how to use Excel. I really don't. So when they were showing the screen there of what it is that you were doing I had no idea what you were doing. So what were you doing? It is feedback we get quite a bit so that the finals case was World of Warcraft themed so Essentially, they'd sort of partner up with blizzard to sort of use wow and you're essentially just modeling 20 characters as they Go around Michael. I have no idea Just said what so take take me through it slowly what what when you're competing? Yeah, what are you actually doing?

So it's always some kind of game So the old competition and the same people still want a similar competition, which is more based in finance You cannot make depreciation and debt modeling sexy or interesting, right? It's amazing that managed to get this far with just Excel in general So it's usually some sort of game which is generally meant to be a bit more approachable for the average layman like yourself who? You know, maybe might have used Excel a little bit might not have done But as opposed to being more like finance themed, it's generally like can you model Yuka or Minesweeper

or Connect 4. What's Minesweeper? You know the one where you click all the mines on, on, I don't know if they still have it, but certainly on the old Windows machines they did. Oh, okay. So essentially a game like that, and it will start off with something fairly simple. So, you example of Monopoly, if you roll a dice where do you end up? And then by

the end of the round it's like okay here are 37 dice rolls, what happens in the game? Gotcha. Did you train for this? Yeah, yeah you do. Although my job sort of has allowed me to get to the level of XLR I am, there's still a lot of weird and wonderful techniques that you sort of have to use in the competition that never come up in my day-to-day work like There's quite a few questions where you have to navigate some sort of map on the semi-final questions was you're in a temple That's like is a maze and you have to get through and get the gold nidle whatever it was And you never have to do that at work Like sort of go through a map.

So you have to learn how to do that and sort of train up into how to answer the typical kind of questions that come up, but there still is, like, you can never fully prepare for everything. So when you're doing this all day at work and then you come home and are you literally practicing hours when you get home to be ready for this? So in the run-up, I was doing quite a bit of practice, like a couple, three hours a day,

but I would say my practice was very much sort of only concentrated in the sort of running out five to six weeks. Although there are rounds of the competition that are ongoing and running throughout the year, the only bits that really sort of matter for getting the final result happen in the last five or six weeks. So I could sort of concentrate my efforts there and then the rest of the year I can not relax, but certainly, you know, take it a bit easier. Did preparing for this competition and doing the competition actually make you better at your day job?

I think so. There's certainly, although, you know, for the example of the map, I'm never going to have to do that at work, hopefully. But there are certainly some advanced things in Excel that I've learned, both sort of by doing things myself and also by learning from other people in the community. There's loads of people who are really sort of keen to share their knowledge and ideas about how to approach these weird and wonderful problems in Excel. They're usually a lot more difficult than what somebody would typically use Excel for. Like it really is trying to push the envelope

of what you can do in the software. So yeah, there's stuff in there where two or three years ago I'd be like, I wouldn't touch that with a barge bowlers now. I just sort of, yeah, I'm very happy and comfortable doing that work. Who are you competing against? What kind of person? It is a variety of people.

Like there are a lot of people in finance. I think there certainly is an overlap there and that's why the same people run the financial championship. But equally there's people who use Excel for different things, those who use it for storing data and looking at data, accountants who, I suppose, are similar to finance. And then just some people who, for some reason, are coders who don't really do much Excel in their day-to-day job, but they want to find a new avenue to compete in and think it's good fun. When we showed the clip,

it looked like it was overwhelmingly men. Is it mostly men who compete in this thing? Yeah, unfortunately it is. There are a few women who get to the high level, I think. This year in the semi-final, we had two women who were unfortunately knocked out. I mentioned my colleague Hilary Smart. She's, I think, the only female sort of world champion

of any sort of format of competitive Excel. So yeah, it's certainly something we'd like to see improve because yeah, at the moment it is a little bit too male heavy. Was this live on television? Yeah, it was on ESPN3 in the US and then everyone else watches it on YouTube. So yeah, it was live.

I think, I can't remember how much of the whole stream was on ESPN because the whole stream is about seven hours long because there's a university championship as well for students. So for any students looking to get involved and learn a different sort of skill, because Excel isn't going anywhere in my opinion, so it's always good to learn.

So they have that for the first few hours and then I think sort of the last two hours would be the sort of two semi-finals and the main final and yeah that was on ESPN3 I think. So could your friends and family watch it as it was really happening? They could yes if you did. I think the time zone is still not still not particularly kind for most of the world. I think it is something like being in Vegas on Pacific time, I think it's Pacific time. Over in Toronto, it was already getting to be like midnight 1 a.m. when it was finishing.

In the UK, it was like 5, 6 a.m. So as much as my friends and family love me, I don't think they're going to get up to watch that. So yeah, hopefully they can get a time earlier in the day just because I think it certainly would be, sort of watch more if they did. What's with the jacket, Michael? Yeah, so Microsoft sent me this last year.

I think they sent it to all the finalists. And I genuinely wear this around town. I think it's lovely. It's actually, you get a lot of corporate stash or whatever, and it's sort of the quite poor quality material. This is genuinely one of the nicest jackets I own. It's really nice material. So yeah, and they sent it to all the finalists,

and I've sort of been wearing it around ever since. And yeah, and they sent it to all the finalists and I've sort of been worrying around ever since. And yeah, I keep saying I need to get a gold star sewn into here like they do with the World Cup, but I haven't got around to it yet. Do you like the logo? Yeah, yeah, and there's sort of a, I don't know if I can show, on the back. Oh wow, that's nice.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting piece. I do get people stop me in the street, they're like, is that a real thing? I'm like, yeah, yeah, it is. Now that's not the only prize you got for winning the championship. No, not at all.

You've got a very sweet looking prize. You certainly do. Yeah, absolutely. Make sure we get it right way up. Here we are. So yeah, you win a wrestling style belt, which this is relatively new. They've only done it this year and last year,

but I think they're gonna keep doing it. I get to keep the belt though, which this is relatively new. They've only done it this year and last year, but I think they're going to keep doing it. I get to keep the belt though, which is nice. And yeah, they decided that this would be a sensible thing to give away to people. And you didn't have to go into the Octagon or anything to get that, right? No, no. Yes, certainly the only way I'm ever

going to get a belt like this. I don't think I back myself as an MMA fighter, to be honest. And are they going to engrave your name in that at some point? Probably, yes. Alongside the star, I probably do need to get that engraved. But yeah, I do just want it. That's a very sweet thing. Now, when do you have to defend your championship?

So next December, as I said, the season's already started. There's sort of various battles throughout the year. They call them the Roast Las Vegas to essentially qualify into the main draw. So that's just started. But yeah, the main sort of piece of my time to defense will be the online rounds, which are late October, and then the in-person finals in Vegas in December.

Do you think you can repeat as champion? I think I certainly can. I think you do need a bit of luck on the day. I think pretty much anybody in the sort of top 10, if it's their day, they could come through and win it. Andrew Nye was sort of the previous three-time world champion. How he won it three times in a row, nobody knows.

But yeah, I certainly think I can win. But yeah, it's going to be tough. Is it like after a, I'm always amazed at this, after an NFL game is over where guys have been beating the living crap out of each other for three straight hours, Yeah, I certainly think I can win, but yeah, it's gonna be tough. Is it like after, I'm always amazed at this, after an NFL game is over where guys have been beating the living crap out of each other for three straight hours, and then after the game's over, they hug and they're friendly and they're smiling

and they're having wonderful chats. Is it that way in your world as well? Absolutely, I think especially, one of the things I especially like about it is like the community is so sort of friendly. Everyone's sort of very happy to chat, share tips. And I know compared to some e-sports, which can have quite a toxic community,

the community, it's so friendly. And yeah, it's just really nice being able to meet up once a year with friends from around the world and share in a common weird interest. Are you training already for next year? Not so much, as I say. I'm doing the sort of monthly battles. I'm sort of keeping myself fit as it were,

but yeah, I think I will go for a similar strategy this year of, you know, go for the sort of real heavy training sort of nearer to December. Now, in our last minute here, I fessed up that I don't know anything about this. So, could you give me some tips as to how a beginner like me could use Excel and for what? Yeah, absolutely.

I think there's never been a better time to learn. I think for those looking to get interested in the competition, it can be quite scary to go in these complex questions, but they're generally very approachable. And there's so many resources online. If you just search Microsoft Excel World Championship, there's so many people who have presented how they approach things. And I think just by watching other people,

you really can pick up a lot very quickly. Okay. I'm very excited to meet a world champion here today. We have not too many world champions who ever come into the studio. So this is, it might not be a first, but it's a very short list. Oh, congratulations to you and good luck in your title defense. Thank you very much. Yeah, it was a pleasure to meet you. Well done.

Thanks, Neil.