Optimizing Excel for Scanning Target Companies Efficiently

I was wondering if anyone has done this before. I have an excel table of reference companies from a client. I am using an agent to quickly scan the list and identify 1-2 companies that align with the target. For smaller lists i am using columns in clay just set to text with the industry and references. But for bigger lists this becomes an issue and if i have more than one industry classification it wont format correctly in the text field. I am sure there is a more elegant way to do this? reference an external sheet or sheet within the clay table prefereably?