ICAEW Excel Meetup – Excel at 40!

Event information

Happy Birthday Excel! Spreadsheets have been shaping the way we work for nearly half a century, and while Excel wasn’t the first on the scene, over the last 40 years it has become indispensable to the accounting and finance profession. Despite countless predictions of its demise, Excel continues to thrive, evolve and adapt in a world of ever-changing tech.

Join the ICAEW Excel Community for a special evening as we celebrate this Excel milestone and its four decades of innovation, resilience, and impact.

Hear from two inspiring speakers:

• Chris Webb, Principle Program Manager at Microsoft, will share insights on Excel’s evolution and what’s next.
• David Benaim, ACA, Microsoft MVP and fresh from a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, will bring a unique blend of expertise, Excel tips and humour to the stage.

There will be a chance to network with fellow Excel enthusiasts, to connect, share, and celebrate with like-minded professionals.

Key benefits

• Hear from two inspiring speakers to gain exclusive insights into Excel’s evolution.
• Connect with your community to share experiences and learn from like-minded peers.
• Celebrate Excel’s 40th birthday with stories, laughs, and a shared appreciation for the tool that’s shaped the way we work.

About the speakers

	David Benaim, Excel trainer, consultant, MVP and comedian David is considered by Microsoft to be in the top 100 or so Excel people worldwide, having held the Microsoft MVP status since 2020. He began his career as a chartered accounting training contract at Deloitte London and now runs a data analytics and training firm Xlconsulting in Cambodia. The firm has trained over 3000 people and consulted over 100 corporate, non-profit and government clients. David has a YouTube channel with over 10,000 subscribers focusing on tech tutorial videos. David is also a monthly contributor to the official monthly what’s new in Excel blog and is Cambodia’s contact member for the ICAEW.
	Chris Webb, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft Chris Webb works for Microsoft on the Fabric Customer Advisory Team. He’s been using Microsoft BI and reporting tools for over 25 years and as such is an Excel fan as well as a Power BI fan – he has been using Power Query and Power Pivot in Excel since they were launched. He is a regular speaker at conferences around the world, has written several books (including the first-ever book on Excel Power Query) and blogs regularly.
	Ian Pay, Head of Data Analytics & Tech, ICAEW Prior to joining ICAEW in March 2022, Ian worked for over 10 years at PwC in Data Analytics, specialising in External Audit and Data Acquisition and developing robust and automated ETL processes to support the firm’s award-winning Halo suite of applications. Ian also played an active role in the development and delivery of training courses, with digital upskilling being an area he is particularly passionate about. He has previously trained as a secondary school teacher and a musician.

CPD hours

ICAEW's revised Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Regulations bring in new CPD requirements. This includes a minimum number of hours and an ethics requirement. Attending this webinar could contribute up to 1 hour of verifiable CPD, providing you can demonstrate that the content is relevant to your role.

A copy of the webinar booking confirmation email is accepted as evidence of verifiable CPD. You will need to save the email as a JPEG or PDF before uploading it to your record. Click here to use ICAEW’s self-assessment tool to help you work out how much CPD you will need to fulfil each year.

Costs

ICAEW members and non-members are welcome to join. This event is organised by the Excel Community. Please click here to join online.