Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Diarmuid Early

REVEALED: Experience i am the excel world champion - The Real Truth

Diarmuid Early, 40, poses for a portrait with the trophy he won by placing first in the Excel World Championship in December outside his home in the lower Manhattan area of New York, NY, Wednesday, January 7, 2026.
‘The mood for the final in Vegas was electric’: Diarmuid Early with his trophy. Photograph: Anna Watts/The Guardian

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.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.