Daniel Koehler

Daniel Koehler has worked in banking and finance for over thirty years. In 2012, he was honored to join Southern at the invitation of former chairman, Walter Smiley, where he served as a bank board member and Audit Committee chair. In 2014, he was asked by Southern’s Executive Committee to step down from his board responsibilities to become Interim CFO after the former CFO left unexpectedly. Daniel then rejoined the board in 2015 after a new CFO, Chris Wewers, joined SBI.

Dan grew up in North Little Rock, AR, where his family founded Koehler Bakery Company, a regional multiple-unit retail bakery chain. He attended Leopold Fraenzens University in Innsbruck, Austria, as a foreign exchange student and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in Economics, Harvard Business School with an MBA in Finance, and The Stonier Graduate School of Banking, where his thesis, In-Home Banking Services: The Issues Facing Financial Institutions was accepted by Rutgers University.

After Harvard, he worked for four years in New York City for the international public accounting firm of Arthur Young & Company, where he obtained his CPA certificate. His client assignments included American Express, Paine Webber, Mobil Oil, Children’s Television Workshop, and National Kinney Company. He left New York to return home to Arkansas to serve as CFO of Union National Bank of Little Rock, its holding company, The Union of Arkansas Corporation, which he helped charter, Citizens Bank of Jonesboro, and its holding company, Citizens Bancshares.