Opening — External Authentication
During the pandemic, WIRED Magazine published an article about the people quietly holding global organisations together.
Not software vendors.
Not ERP systems.
Not transformation programmes.
Excel practitioners.
People who were keeping industry running when everything else broke.
In that article, Hiran de Silva was featured for creating what WIRED described as six-figure spreadsheets inside major organisations.
That phrase stuck.
Not because of ego.
But because it raised a serious question:
How does a single spreadsheet become worth six figures?
And more importantly:
Why can almost nobody explain how it happens?
The Mission (Why This Exists)
Since that article, the mission has been simple:
To explain — step by step — how ordinary Excel work crosses a line and becomes something management will protect, retain, and pay for.
Not through tricks.
Not through heroics.
Not through working harder.
But through architecture.
That explanation is what this demonstration is.
The Fork in the Road (The Demonstration)
At a certain point, every Excel-based organisation reaches a fork.
Up to that point, everyone looks the same:
- Same tools
- Same spreadsheets
- Same training
- Same job titles
- Same pay bands
Then the road splits.
Left-Hand Road — The Familiar One
This is where almost all Excel education lives today.
- Tool-based training
- Feature demonstrations
- Single-user thinking
- File-based logic
- Batch processes
- Manual consolidation
- Fragile workflows
This road is crowded.
It is well-lit.
It is professionally marketed.
And it leads to:
- Excel Hell
- Burnout
- Replacement narratives
- Career ceilings
Right-Hand Road — The One Nobody Teaches
This road looks boring at first.
- Separation of data and interface
- Connected processes
- Live consolidation
- Multi-user thinking
- Business-driven architecture
- Excel as a client, not a container
This is where spreadsheets stop being documents
and start being systems.
This is where:
- Requirements can change mid-meeting
- Budgets update without re-running anything
- Management sees results immediately
- IT is not a bottleneck
- Vendors are not required
And this is where value appears.
Why the Money Appears At the End, Not the Beginning
The six figures do not come from Excel skill.
They come from what becomes possible once processes are connected.
Business is constantly changing:
- Structures
- Assumptions
- Strategies
- Reporting requirements
On the right-hand road, those changes are:
- Fast
- Local
- Negotiable
- Reversible
- Visible in real time
That level of agility:
️does not come from:
- IT departments
- ERP vendors
- FP&A platforms
- The Excel replacement industry
And crucially:
It does not come from the modern Excel education ecosystem either — because that ecosystem overwhelmingly teaches the left-hand road.
So when an organisation finds someone who can operate on the right-hand road…
They are the only game in town.
The Economics (Why £15k a Month Is Normal)
At senior management level:
- £15,000 a month is a rounding error
- It is cheaper than IT
- Cheaper than consultants
- Cheaper than failed transformations
- Cheaper than ripping out systems
And unlike vendors or departments:
This capability cannot be bought off the shelf.
It has to exist inside the organisation.
The Quiet Truth (This Is the Part That Matters)
In every case study provided to WIRED:
Hiran de Silva did not arrive as:
- A consultant
- A guru
- A specialist
- A “six-figure spreadsheet guy”
He arrived as:
“Just an Excel person.”
Paid at ordinary Excel rates.
The six figures emerged after the fork was taken.
Which means the conclusion is unavoidable:
This is not about talent.
This is not about status.
This is not about credentials.
It is about seeing the fork — and choosing differently.
Epilogue — Why This Demonstration Exists
This Fork-in-the-Road demonstration is both:
- An introduction
- And an explanation
It shows:
- Where Excel careers stall
- Where enterprise value begins
- Why the market keeps getting it wrong
- And why the people who know this are so rare
The WIRED article is the entrance.
This demonstration is the proof.
And the six figures?
They are simply the side-effect of walking the right road in a world where almost nobody else does.
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