Level Up Podcast

About Level Up Podcast

This is the LevelUp Podcast—where finance leaders share real stories, insights, and the connections that move them forward. Tune in to learn, sharpen your edge, and level up together.

Publisher

Nick Araco

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

27 Oct 2020

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

84 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   Simplicity Over Data: Rethinking Finance With Artur Jacques

   Artur Jacques is the Founder and CEO of Margineo, a margin analytics company that helps finance teams identify the drivers behind changes in profitability. Before founding Margineo, he worked in FP&A at Tesla, where he led global manufacturing and supply chain forecasting. Artur is also a technologist and self-taught programmer who applies first-principles thinking to complex financial challenges. His work focuses on helping finance leaders move beyond surface-level reporting and gain clearer insight into their numbers. In this episode… More data can make finance feel smarter without making the business any easier to understand. What if the real advantage comes from stripping away complexity until only the numbers that matter are left? For Artur Jacques, the key lies in doing the hard work required to reach simplicity. He compares it to a great recipe: you do not need more ingredients, just the right ones, and finance teams can often get most of the way there by using the data they already have correctly instead of adding more dimensions, dashboards, or automation. The result is a finance function that focuses less on collecting information and more on understanding the few drivers that actually explain what is happening in the business. In this episode of the Level Up, Nick Araco is joined by Artur Jacques, Founder and CEO of Margineo, to discuss simplifying finance to uncover what truly drives performance. They explore choosing the right data, applying first-principles thinking, and fixing processes before automating them. Artur also talks about why curiosity and business understanding matter more than simply knowing the numbers.

2. 

   24 Sept 2026

   CFO Leadership in the Age of AI With Matt Lane

   Matt Lane is the Founder of Smart Lane AI and CFO of Yolo Federal Credit Union, which serves more than 23,000 members and manages over $400 million in assets. During his 17 years at Yolo FCU, Matt has helped lead major initiatives, including a core system conversion, digital wallet adoption, and relocating an underperforming branch that tripled its production within a year. Passionate about making emerging technology practical for smaller organizations, he launched Smart Lane AI to help small businesses and entrepreneurs use AI to save time, improve decision-making, streamline operations, and support growth. In this episode… AI is giving finance teams the chance to move beyond reporting and become faster, more strategic partners to the business. But how can CFOs embrace that opportunity without losing the judgment, collaboration, and controls that make finance trustworthy? Matt Lane approaches AI with equal parts curiosity and discipline, using it to modernize finance without giving up control of the numbers. He is using AI to modernize processes like month-end close, budgeting, and forecasting while expanding accounting's role in analytics, but he stresses that leaders still need to validate outputs and understand the numbers behind them. Done well, that combination can free up capacity for higher-value work, strengthen decision-making, and help finance teams create more value across the organization. In this episode of the Level Up, Nick Araco is joined by Matt Lane, Founder of Smart Lane AI, to discuss how AI is reshaping the CFO role. Matt explores modernizing finance, expanding accounting into analytics, and balancing AI with human judgment. Matt also shares advice on developing curious, collaborative finance teams.

3. 

   17 Sept 2026

   Payment Economics and the Future of Finance With Daniel Jasinski

   Daniel Jasinski is the Founder and CFO of the Payment Economics Institute, which develops frameworks, education, and advisory services for managing business payments as a financial portfolio. He created the Payment Economics discipline to help organizations measure and improve payment yield, working capital, and the economic return of payment decisions. Daniel brings more than a decade of experience across B2B payments, including rebates, supply chain finance, working capital, and AP automation. Through the Institute's journal, book, certification, and advisory work, he helps finance leaders turn payments into measurable financial performance. In this episode… Enterprise payments are easy to dismiss as plumbing: necessary, repetitive, and mostly invisible when everything works. But what if the way a company pays suppliers is actually a recurring source of yield hiding in plain sight? For Daniel Jasinski, the key lies in treating payments as capital in motion and managing them like a portfolio of assets. He points to the economics embedded in timing, payment methods, rebates, dynamic discounting, and supplier relationships, arguing that optimized outbound flows can generate at least 100 basis points in payment yield. That shift turns AP from a back-office process into a strategic function that can improve working capital, sharpen technology decisions, and elevate the people managing those relationships. In this episode of the Level Up, Nick Araco is joined by Daniel Jasinski, Founder and CFO of the Payment Economics Institute, to discuss unlocking untapped value in enterprise payments. They explore payment yield, managing payments as a portfolio, and using technology without losing human judgment. Dan also shares advice on evaluating payment technology and avoiding costly implementation missteps.

Who has been a guest on Level Up Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Valerie Martin
• Albert Ramos Jr
• Justin Norton
• Andrew D Platt
• Daniel Nelson

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Contact Level Up Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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