About the Author

Danielle Stein Fairhurst is a professional financial modeler with many years’ experience as a financial modeling analyst. She helps her clients create meaningful financial models in the form of business cases, pricing models, and management reports. She has hands-on experience in a number of industry sectors, including telecoms, information systems, manufacturing, and financial services. She is also the author of Using Excel for Business Analysis: A Guide to Financial Modelling Fundamentals (Wiley Finance).

Danielle has regular engagements in Australia and around the world as a speaker, course facilitator, financial modeling consultant, and analyst. Her custom-built training courses have been described by attendees as well presented, neatly structured, informative, practical, and extremely relevant to their everyday needs. She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM), and has taught management accounting subjects at Sydney University. Danielle is the founder of the Financial Modelling in Excel LinkedIn forum, which has more than 40,000 members worldwide. She also founded Modelers’ Meetup groups with over 5,000 members in seven countries. She was a recent guest on Excel TV and has been interviewed for several industry podcasts.

Author’s Acknowledgments

First, I must thank the many thousands of student modelers I’ve trained over the years both in face-to-face training courses and online. I’ve used their feedback and experiences to build, design, and improve the examples used in this book.

A number of people, including colleagues and industry experts, have assisted me with this book. Many of these people have taken the time to give me feedback and share their opinions on the subject. For their input and support, I am very grateful: Susan Wilkin, Gail Davies, Matt Allington, John Michaloudis, Ian Bennett, Lance Rubin, Michael Hutchens, Justin Oh, Michael Alexander, Peter Bartholomew, and Johann Odou.

I’d also like to thank Tate, for his good cheer and help with graphics, and Mieke, for her constant supply of iced coffee as I wrote throughout our sweltering Sydney summer, as well as Enid for keeping me warm as I wrote during a winter visit to the UK.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

Acquisitions Editor: Katie Mohr

Project Editor: Elizabeth Kuball

Copy Editor: Elizabeth Kuball

Technical Editor: Mike Talley

Editorial Assistant: Serena Novosel

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Production Editor: Tamilmani Varadharaj

Cover Image: © Alexey Rozhanovsky/Shutterstock