Our Leadership

Karen Stewart has had 30 years of experience building companies in the Financial Industry. She has been either a founder or co-founder of eight different businesses. Combining Karen’s personal divorce experience with the financial acumen she’s developed over the years as an MBA, entrepreneur and financial company founder, Karen created Fairway Divorce Solutions in 2006.

Fairway is a national dispute resolution company, focusing on providing clients with an alternative to the traditional system of divorce and disputes. Fairway offers a step-by-step process that dramatically reduces time, costs, stress and, most importantly, protects the children during the process.

In 2008, Karen launched her first best selling book Clean Break: How to Divorce with Dignity and Move on with Your Life. Karen is a sought-after speaker, known for her inspiring and informative presentations. She has spoken at Vancouver’s Wellness Show, Edward School of Business, HRPA Seminars, E-Women Network Luncheon’s, Breathe Now Conference and Canadian Institute of Financial Planners. Karen was awarded the Woman of Vision Award in Calgary and PROFIT Magazine’s Top 100 Business Women.

Daryl Maksymec is a digital marketing pioneer and diversified software developer with in-depth knowledge of business development, branding and design. He has founded numerous successful companies over the last five years, including sidepix.com, superbrokers.ca, and pixeltribe.com, as well as an Amazon online reseller and software development company called Colloco Enterprises.

In October 2018, Daryl renewed his focus on Fairway Divorce Solutions to follow his passion for integrated marketing, branding, and web and software development.

Brittany Doucet has practiced almost exclusively in the area of Family Law since being called to the bar. After guiding clients through the court system and litigation, Brittany realized she wished to help people work their way through separation and divorce in a way that wouldn’t destroy the family unit. At Fairway, Brittany works closely with our Resolution Experts to ensure that all of our offices have the best and most current understanding of matrimonial and family law across Canada, as well as providing legal information about family law to clients. Additionally, she provides consultative advice to our Resolution Experts on matters affecting individual case files to ensure that our clients receive the best service possible.

Don Thompson, QC is a former lawyer who has been a regulator of the legal profession for 35+ years. He has interests and expertise in business process design, change management (including organizational change), governance, professional competence, the law and practice of professional regulation, and access to justice. Called to the bar originally in BC, he came to Alberta to lead the Law Society of Alberta as CEO for 19 years. The Law Society is widely perceived as one of Canada’s leading legal regulators. His work included inter-organizational change through national and regional groups, and he led (and continues to lead) organizations engaged in this work. Don believes that people transitioning from a matrimonial to a post-matrimonial relationship should have access to a range of services that will permit them, and their families, to successfully move ahead with their lives in a constructive and healthy manner.

Shawn Wilson has been founding, operating, and financing successful businesses for over a decade. Well respected as a creative dealmaker, his diligence, drive, and thirst for knowledge are key factors in his success. To date, Shawn’s areas of focus have been technology, marketing, and finance. He recognized the awesome potential of the Internet in its early days and has leveraged that power to build a number of dynamic and profitable companies.

Shawn Wilson is currently the Founder and CEO of Muzooka, a platform that allows artists to manage their media assets from any festival, venue, ticketing, or radio platform on one central hub. Muzooka also sends verified show reports to collecting societies to ensure that rights holders are properly paid when their songs are performed live. Muzooka is an industry leader with over 1.6 million artists using the platform globally and some of the biggest names in the business. iHeart, Billboard, The Grammys, Gracenote, Eventbrite and many more.

In 2001, Shawn co-founded The Canadian Equity Group. Shawn successfully sold his stake in the company in 2005. He then co-founded Strategic Sales Delivery to develop and market a new mortgage delivery platform. The company secured an exclusive contract with Marlborough Stirling Canada, owned by United Utilities ($4B Market Cap).

Peter Baran joins Fairway as leadership coach, business strategy consultant and process improvement expert. Growing up working in a small family business, Pete went on to work for multiple Fortune 500 companies, rising from manager to VP. Wanting to make more of an impact, Pete took on challenging mandates including partner of a rapidly growing IT project services company, CEO of a start-up B2G services company, turnaround COO of a TSX listed B2B bio-composite manufacturing company, Director of Projects and Corporate Strategy for a rapidly expanding luxury food retailer, fix-it guy for the Alberta Department of Energy, and a founding Board Member of the then newly-minted BC Land Titles and Survey Authority. He has a degree in Commerce from the University of BC, a certificate in High-Performance Leadership from Cornell University and a certificate in Process Engineering from Villanova University, as well as courses in both Financial Statement Analysis and Mentorship from the Sauder School of Business. He believes strongly that we are all capable of stepping into the broken and hurting places and making a difference that will change someone’s world.

As our Director of Franchise Development, Travis implements creative innovation and entrepreneurial expertise in sales, sales coaching, and business building. He possesses an extensive sports marketing background, working for teams in Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League. Travis was one of the early franchise partners for Canada's leading home healthcare franchise, Nurse Next Door, back in 2008. He helped to grow his market into a multi-million-dollar operation during his tenure. Travis comes with experience in all aspects of franchise development, business growth, and operations. He brings a unique perspective to the franchisees we work with, which is the perspective of a successful franchisee. He is an exceptional communicator and motivator who thrives on building strong relationships and putting those around him in a position to succeed. Travis aims to help take Fairway to the next level, helping create more successful franchisees along the way.

Patrick currently operates as Fairway's Director of Franchise Operations. He has shown himself to be a natural problem solver and relationship builder, bringing systems expertise in systems onboarding, training, and performance coaching. Patrick has been building systems in franchising for over 15 years. He has worked with two of the most admired brands in Canada, Nurse Next Door and 1-800-GOT-JUNK? He has helped grow both from 10 locations to over 100. If that weren't enough, he grew his own 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Franchise into an award-winning, $1 million+ location. During his time, Patrick has successfully launched and supported hundreds of franchisees in both North America and Australia, showing that he knows a thing or two about systems and scalability. Patrick relishes the opportunity to implement the various best practices that he has learned throughout the years to emerging brands scale up faster and more efficiently than ever. Though he has several awards franchising, his proudest accomplishment may be back-to-back Fantasy Football titles in 2017 and 2018. On weekends, you will find Patrick helping his daughter with gymnastics, coaching his oldest son's soccer team, or helping his youngest build LEGO masterpieces.