Dathan Gaskill, Garver (Small Private Company CFO Finalist)

Dathan Gaskill

CFO may seem like a serious and even daunting job title, but Dathan Gaskill, CFO of Garver in North Little Rock, says that he’s had a lot of fun in his career.

Gaskill began at Garver only two years ago, in 2013, but prior to that worked for a wide range of employers: He taught at UALR, worked at Stephens Inc. and the Arkansas Farm Bureau, led his own practice and headed corporate finance at Acxiom for a decade.

“The most fun thing I’ve done was living in Europe for a year when I worked for Acxiom,” Gaskill said. “I was in London for a year, which was huge fun.”

And now, although he’s situated quite a ways from London, Gaskill calls his current job “the greatest I’ve ever had” because of the people he works with. He said that they are hard workers with high confidence and high professionalism.

“The lesson that I get to learn, practice, remember and be aware of is that it’s always critical to invest in people, and in so doing you get the highest and best use of people,” Gaskill said. “You want people operating at their best. … It’s not always easy. People are complicated creatures.”

Gaskill, who holds an MBA in finance from UALR, calls himself a strategic CFO rather than a technical one. He said that much of his job revolves around metrics and analytics, “not much different than any executive position.”

He does not see himself leaving Garver, but instead would like to help improve a company that he believes is already highly successful, having been around for nearly a century.

“This place is great, so now it’s ‘How do we make it better?’” Gaskill said. “Everybody is pulling in the same direction, and now I’m being able to chart a path as a senior officer to improvements and enhancements.”