What laptop should I get for heavy lifting in excel?

So just got a promotion mainly in part to my excel skills, which are nothing to brag to this group about but that’s a different story, during my presentation my CEO told me to pick out any laptop I want to ensure it has what I need to run excel how I need it to.

I am constantly having my computer crash while running excel, I’ll go in and close every other app and at times it will just freeze up, then close excel and restart. Over the years I’ve been lurking here trying to figure out how to make my spreadsheets more efficient but when using shared files that I don’t make and that contain years of data I can’t help it.

What specs should I be looking for? My IT says I need to make sure I need 10+ core CPU with 20 threads other buddies in IT world say all I need is more ram. So I’m asking everyone here what specs should I look at or at least make a priority? IT is politely requesting I stay with with HP but it’s not 100 required.