The professionals behind Maxim, how we approach complex planning, and the transparent way our firm gets paid.
Why we built Maxim.
Big financial decisions don’t arrive one at a time. If you change the corporate structure, the retirement answer changes with it. If you change the tax answer, so does the investment one. Cross a border, and all three change at once.
We started this firm because too many business owners were getting different advice from professionals who weren’t working with each other. Maxim exists to finally put all those pieces together under one roof.
Independent and fee-only.
We are paid by our clients, not by selling products. If you are weighing whether to pay down a mortgage or invest, a commission-based advisor profits more from one choice. We get paid the same either way. Your strategy is built entirely on what is right for you, never on what pays us.
The team.
Obed has been a CPA since 2010. He ran the finance side of an ultra high-net-worth family office as COO, then became a partner at a mid-sized CPA firm.
In 2018, one of Canada’s first cloud-based CPA firms, the one he founded, got acquired. He built MaximONE next: a technology platform for proactive financial advice.
CPA Alberta gave him the Distinguished Service Award. Lethbridge College gave him the Career Virtuoso Award.
His approach to planning comes from doing it for his own family first.
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Simon holds an MBA in Accounting and carries the CFP, CIM, and CLU designations. His background spans asset management and public accounting, both sides of which most advisors only see one of.
He writes regularly for The Globe and Mail. He’s also written a book on financial planning for business owners and professionals.
Chris founded Wealth Awesome in 2019, a financial education platform that reached over 6 million Canadians before he sold it. He’s a CFA Charterholder with fifteen-plus years in Canadian finance, including time as a financial advisor at RBC.
He now writes about money and markets for CTV News. He also runs the firm’s YouTube channel.
Galen is a former teacher turned Certified Financial Planner, based in Belleville, Ontario. He watched his father, a now-retired nephrologist, get pitched product after product. He built his practice around advice with nothing behind it: no products to sell and no commission tied to the recommendation, so there is nothing to gain by steering a client one way or another.
He hosts A Clean Bill of Wealth, a podcast for physicians, and also leads the group’s estate planning work.
Renae has spent three decades in startups and organizational development. As VP of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Economic Development Lethbridge, she built programs through the Tecconnect incubator. Those programs secured millions in funding for founders.
She won the YWCA Woman of Distinction award for Entrepreneurship and was later nominated for WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women.
At Maxim, she coaches executives on leadership and what they want to leave behind.
Where you may have seen us.
Members of the team write and speak for The Globe and Mail, CTV News, and CBC News. They also teach through Physician Empowerment and Galen’s own podcast, A Clean Bill of Wealth.
Through Blueprint Financial, the firm runs a financial education channel with more than 60,000 YouTube subscribers.
Ready to settle the decision?
If you’ve been sitting on a decision you can’t settle alone, that’s what the first hour is for.