Welcome! I am really glad you have found your way to my neck of the Excel woods!

Just a bit about me.. I have been working as an Excel trainer since the mid-90s. I have published a number of books on Excel: Your Excel Survival Kit – your guide to surviving and thriving in an Excel world and quite a few with BookBoon. You can read about all of them here. 

I aim to “put the fun in functions” and to help ease the fear so many people have around Excel. I love puns, crime fiction and movies. I am married (28 years…can’t quite believe that – I suspect he can’t either…) . We have one son who is a software engineer (yep, that’s from his mother’s side of the family). I live in the west of Ireland – next stop Newfoundland.  I am always always learning about Excel and I am regularly trying to think of ways to make this most powerful piece of software more accessible and easier to grasp.  Hence I have been known to reference Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and other programmes when explaining a topic.

After I completed my Commerce degree in NUI, Galway (UCG as it was then), my first job was in Cameroon in Africa where I worked as an accounting teacher. I was there for 2.5 years and loved it. When I returned to Ireland, I had a number of positions but eventually ended up working with people with disabilities  with the Rehabilitation Institute in Sandymount Dublin (Roslyn Park College)  When I got married and moved back to my current location in Galway, I decided to go freelance after a year. I stayed at home to look after our son. I say that Excel chose me. I got asked questions about Excel in class – I didn’t always know the answer at the time but I made sure I knew it the next time. I have always loved getting things to work – hence the enjoyment of accounting and I do maintain that getting Excel formulas to work is a joy in itself.  I am lucky enough to enjoy what I do and my testimonials indicate that – fortunately – other people do too!

When I teach Excel,  my deepest desire is that first of all, people feel less afraid of it and secondly that they apply it to their own data so that it really makes sense to them. If you feel you would like to have a chat about this – you can contact me here