Bob is a successful CFO and founder who has worked in various industries such as e-commerce, travel, hospitality, and fintech. In this article, we discuss how Bob has balanced his role as a CFO and creativity to grow companies.

Bob's experience as a CFO has shown that the role has evolved over time, requiring strengths in both numbers and creativity. As a strategic partner to the CEO, peers, and ownership group, a CFO needs to handle external and internal challenges. To grow technically and creatively, challenging one's comfort zone is essential, diversifying one's skills by reading and learning.

When it comes to decision-making, being creative and taking calculated risks is crucial in business. The CFO's perception is changing, and they need to take risks while balancing risk management. Bob suggests that CFOs should adopt a testing mentality, breaking things down into a laboratory experimental testing discipline. This discipline evaluates new products, markets, lead generation, and other potential risks with good data to prove results. Testing helps limit risks while providing valuable insights.

Bob gave an example of testing lead generation as a potential test. By testing different lead sources for B2B or B2C salesforces, CFOs can determine which lead source is best. Testing should be methodical, disciplined, and evaluated in a controlled manner, including testing the creative and measuring all conversion points. For example, with content creation, the CFO can test different content and evaluate which performs better in terms of lead generation.

In conclusion, Bob's experience as a successful CFO and founder highlights the importance of balancing numbers and creativity. CFOs should challenge themselves and adopt a testing mentality, taking calculated risks while balancing risk management. Testing is an excellent way to limit risks while gaining valuable insights. By doing so, CFOs can help grow companies successfully.

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