“The junior bankers, the junior consultants … see it as their job to turn the crank on the model, hand over the answer, and the next person above them on the chain says: What does this mean? What’s the insight? Does it make sense?” – Diarmuid Early – Excel World Champion 2025
Backstory on Diarmuid Early
Diarmuid Early, a standout Excel expert from Ireland, clinched the Microsoft Excel World Championship (MEWC) 2025 title by defeating 23 elite competitors in the LAN finals at Las Vegas’ HyperX Arena on December 2-3, 2025.7,4,2 His victory capped a grueling season-long tournament organized by Excel Esports, featuring over $60,000 in prizes and drawing top talent from nearly every continent.4,2,1 Early surged through intense stages, including close battles in the semifinals where he trailed leaders like “Haw” by just 10 points (430 vs. 440) before advancing to the final showdown.2
The MEWC 2025 path began with nine “Road to Las Vegas” (RTLV) battles from January to September, qualifying 90 players, followed by regional qualification rounds on September 27 across five continents, sending 150 more to online playoffs from October 11-18 that whittled 256 entrants to 16.1,2 Day 2 in Las Vegas added 64 players via last-chance qualifiers, local chapters, and wildcards, culminating in 24 finalists on Day 3.1,3 Early’s prowess shone in high-pressure formats like speed battles with five-minute eliminations and “terrain map” challenges requiring rapid, accurate solutions to 16 complex cases.1,2,3 Beyond esports, Early embodies practical Excel mastery, critiquing how juniors prioritize computation over interpretation—a nod to his real-world finance experience where models must yield actionable insights.7
Context of the Quote
This quote underscores a core tension in financial modeling and consulting: technical execution versus strategic interpretation. In investment banking and management consulting, juniors often build intricate Excel models—running scenarios, valuations, or forecasts—but seniors demand the “so what?” Early’s remark, drawn from his expertise, highlights why Excel champions like him excel: they don’t just crank numbers; they extract meaning, sense-check outputs, and drive decisions. Spoken amid the 2025 championship hype, it resonates in an era where AI tools automate “cranking,” elevating humans to insight roles. The observation aligns with MEWC’s evolution, transforming Excel from office staple to esports discipline testing speed, accuracy, and problem-solving under eliminations and live audiences.6,2,1
Backstory on Leading Theorists in Financial Modeling and Insights
Early’s insight echoes foundational theories in financial modeling, blending quantitative rigor with qualitative judgment. Key figures shaped this field:
- Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern professor): Pioneer of valuation modeling, Damodaran’s books like Investment Valuation (1995) stress probabilistic DCF models but warn against “garbage in, garbage out”—juniors must interpret assumptions for real-world sense, not just outputs. His spreadsheets, used globally, demand beta adjustments and growth forecasts tied to economic insights.[Source: Widely cited in finance education; aligns with Early’s chain-of-command critique.]
- Joel Stern (McKinsey alum, Stern Stewart founder): Creator of Economic Value Added (EVA) in the 1980s, Stern theorized models should reveal value creation beyond raw numbers. EVA adjusts accounting profits for capital costs, forcing modelers to explain “why this matters” to executives—mirroring Early’s “what’s the insight?”[Source: Stern’s frameworks underpin modern consulting.]
- Paul Asquith and David Mullins (1980s Harvard research): Their work on leveraged buyouts emphasized sensitivity analysis in LBO models, where juniors run scenarios but theorists like them proved success hinges on interpreting debt capacity and exit multiples amid uncertainty.
- Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart, and David Wessels (McKinsey’s Valuation authors, 5th ed. 2015): They formalized the “story-driven model,” arguing spreadsheets are tools for narratives—juniors deliver mechanics, but value lies in linking numbers to strategy, risks, and benchmarks. Their templates influenced FMWC (Financial Modeling World Cup), a feeder to MEWC talent pools.5
- Historical roots: Harry Markowitz (1952 Modern Portfolio Theory) introduced optimization models, but his Nobel work stressed diversification insights over mere math. Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller (1958 MM Theorem) showed capital structure irrelevance in perfect markets, urging modelers to probe real-world frictions like taxes.
These theorists elevated modeling from computation to decision science, training generations (via CFA, FMI certifications) to bridge Early’s junior-senior gap. In esports like MEWC, sponsored by CFA Institute and Financial Modeling Institute, competitors embody this by solving “mind-bending tasks” that demand both speed and insight.3,1 Early’s championship win positions him as a modern torchbearer, proving elite modelers thrive by asking the right questions post-calculation.
References
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URxoXglEbtk
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2dmLZJpSA
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGxxi7Lau50
6. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlnCUAKLENyFC8wftR-oNw
7. https://esportsinsider.com/2025/12/microsoft-excel-world-championship-2025-winner
