What You'll Get
4+ Hours of self-paced training videos
24 high-value, learn-as-you-work lessons
Expert stories from the field & across industries
Research-backed curriculum designed to unlock your hidden talents
Immediately applicable Pro Tips & Tactics
Graphite Academy
Excel & VBA Super Skills To Save Time & Get Promoted
Learn winning strategies for automating routine tasks and defending your models in front of teammates and executives.
$199
Self-paced E-learning course
7-day money back guarantee
Trusted by top companies
Set Yourself Apart
Why you should take this course
Excel is great, but only a handful of professionals know how to turn such a common tool into their secret weapon. With the skills covered in this course, you can set yourself apart and win back some valuable calendar time.
VBA can automate and accelerate your work on complex and disparate data sets. With advanced Excel techniques for combining your data as well as validating and defending your assumptions, you’ll win the respect of your colleagues and clients.
What You'll Learn
- Spot “bad data” before it gets you fired
- Automate tasks that save your team hours every day
- Earn respect by challenging decisions with defendable data
- Build winning interfaces and models for all stakeholders
- Much More! See Full Agenda
Optimized for You
Who is this program for?
consultants
- Get more client work done, faster
- Create dependable workflows for any team
- Support your clients in making wiser decisions
employees
- Know your role in the business
- Learn how your job brings value
- Win your supervisor’s respect under scrutiny
- Fast-track yourself for promotion
- Manage the data conversation across all levels of your org
Meet your Instructors
Pete Boukouzis
Senior M&A investment banker with 18 years of Wall Street experience
- Advised on M&A transactions ranging from $5 million to $90 billion in value
- Successful track record closing "messy" and complex transactions, including distressed and cross-border deals
- Served as expert witness on multiple high-profile cases
David Khoury
Finance professional with over 12 years of experience in banking & private equity
- Experience managing fast-growing teams and developing projects from concept stage to investor delivery
- Raised and managed funds of up to $255 million and developed projects for a $1.5 billion investment group
- CFA with a background in computer science and a strong foundation in data science
Our Difference
What sets this course apart
Expertise is no longer about what you know. It's about how you think. Most courses on Excel and VBA focus on the "how to". This course goes beyond that by unpacking the "how to think" using the tool, and how changing the way you think will take you to the next level in your career.
In this course, you will hear from experts who have used Excel and VBA to solve problems, earn trust, win contracts and promotions, and take their careers to new levels of credibility and compensation. You'll not only hear how they think when they sit down and open their laptops, but how they communicate, collaborate, and strategize to turn data into insight and insights into real value for their clients and their careers.
Course Curriculum
1. Reliable, effective teamwork using Excel
- 1.1. The stress Excel can cause and the stress it can eliminate
- 1.2. Formatting spreadsheets so they’re easy to read and understand
- 1.3. Building your team to leverage the tool
- 1.4. Maintaining a personal sense of integrity through the work
- 1.5. Thinking up and down the Excel “chain of custody”
- 1.6. Scrutinizing teamwork with the Socratic method
2. Scrutinizing data in Excel to make solid assumptions
- 2.1. Translating granular data into usable analyses
- 2.2. Spotting mistakes early and safeguarding the quality of findings
- 2.3. Losing trust with errors, and how to rebuild it
- 2.4. Stress testing data models
3. Defending conclusions and presenting alternatives
- 3.1. Delivering findings that stakeholders don’t want to hear
- 3.2. Presenting alternatives based on findings
- 3.3. Advising stakeholders on a business pivot
- 3.4. Presenting findings with strength and confidence
- 3.5. Leverage, strategy, and staying on top
- 3.6. Coming back from failure
- 3.7. Knowing your audience
- 3.8. Preparing to defend your findings
- 3.9. Carrying your audience up the learning curve
4. Excel Case Studies & Mastery
- 4.1. Case Study: Expert witness on the stand
- 4.2. Case Study: Realizing the client's request is impractical
- 4.3. Where to go to learn more for free
- 4.4. When and how to use more complex Excel skills
5. VBA Powers & Limitations
- 5.1. When to use VBA
- 5.2. When NOT to use VBA
- 5.3. Tips & tricks for learning VBA
- 5.4. Complex Analyses: Starting with pen and paper
- 5.5. Case Study: Spice up your excel salad
6. Choosing VBA as a career move
- 6.1. Augmenting your existing skills with VBA
- 6.2. Job security through VBA: Crisis-proofing your skillset
- 6.3. Case Study: The VBA Premortem
- 6.4. Case Study: Homogenizing your data on import
7. VBA Case Studies And Mastery
- 7.1. Case Study: One spreadsheet, 400 stakeholders
- 7.2. Case Study: Refining the cash flows of a complex model
- 7.3. Where to go to learn more VBA
- 7.4. Case Study: Using VBA Libraries
- 7.5. When and how to do a VBA bootcamp
Frequently Asked Questions
What will I learn in these courses?
- Graphite Academy courses are based on the premise that expertise these days is less about what you know, and more about how you think. We've designed these courses to help you unpack the mind of some of Graphite's top consultants, giving you the feeling of having the expert in the room with you as a source of knowledge and inspiration.
In these courses, you'll learn how experts use data tools to advance their careers and solve bigger problems. You'll hear how they learn about their clients underlying needs and desires, identify business assumptions and data sources needed to begin the analysis, and deliver finding with confidence, conviction, and compelling stories. We'll also include screenshares of the expert walking through the tools themselves to show you how the lessons apply in a practical sense on screen.
What is the format and structure of these courses?
- These courses are organized into 3 to 5 hours of video content structured in 5 to 10 minute segments. You'll have access to interviews with experts, stories from the field, and screenshares walking you through the tools in action.
You'll be able to watch the videos at your own pace anytime. We also include supplementary links and resources to help you dive into the tools and start practicing real-world applications of the technology on your own computer.
What sets these courses apart?
- We believe that expertise these days is less about what you know and more about how you think. So we have hired experts in online learning to tap into the minds of some of our top Graphite consultants, and show you how they think and use technology to solve bigger problems and advance their careers.
Other courses on the internet tend to focus on the technical features of the tool with lectures and long winded screencasts demoing the tool. Those courses tend to be tedious and outdated, and usually redundant since the "how to" resources are usually available online for free.
When are these courses offered?
- Once you purchase a published course you will have unlimited access to the course content. You can view it wherever, whenever you want.
We suggest taking the course once, and then going back to it in a few months to see what new lessons you learn from the experts as your own knowledge and experience with the tool evolves.
Do I need access to the tech tool to take this course?
- Most learners enjoy following along with the lessons on their own computers, which would require you to have your own access to the software featured in the course. Others use the courses to get an overview of the tool so they can have informed conversations about the tool with clients and decide when to invest in the tool as an addition to their professional repertoire.
Most of our courses, such as Tableau and SQL have free-to-use options you can use to teach yourself the tool and follow along with course content. Others, such as Excel, require a paid license to use.
What prior experience do I need to take this course?
- No prior experience with the tool is required. These courses are best for two levels of prior experience:
A. You've heard of the tool featured in the course and you'd like to learn how to start using it on the job
B. You've worked with the tool before and would like to level up your skills and accelerate your path to expertise
At minimum, you should have heard of the tool featured in the course and have a basic sense of how it's used by businesses.
Where can I learn the basics before I take these courses?
- No prior experience is with the tool is required. However, it is recommended that you have heard of the tool and have a basic understanding of how it's used in business.
If you'd like to familiarize yourself with the basics of the tool in order to decide whether it's the right time to take a Graphite Academy course, we recommend searching for "best YouTube channels for learning Thinkific" and watching a few free videos to get a basic understanding of the tool.
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