Canadian HR Expert Series: Shawna Stewart

We launched this series to highlight Canadian HR leaders who shape culture, leadership, and how we work.

Meet Shawna Stewart, based in Toronto, currently Director of Product at FIS, Advisor at DMZ, and Leadership Development Coach at Unicorn Labs. Before moving to product, Shawna was VP of People and Operations at Railz, where she helped teams level up and guided the company to being acquired by FIS, a global payments leader. Today she connects HR, product, and go-to-market, acting as the glue that helps teams execute faster and smarter.

From Psychology to People and Product

Shawna always gravitated to organizational behaviour. She studied psychology, dipped a toe into clinical work, then chose business. She started as an office coordinator at a tech startup and quickly picked up resume screening, payroll, and everything in between. That curiosity led to a generalist path, then VP of People and Operations.

Understanding how people learn, communicate, and perform became her edge. She learned to set clear expectations, put the right people in the right seats, and adapt working styles so teams could hit peak performance. Those same instincts power her product leadership today.

Railz to FIS Global

Railz was acquired by FIS Global just over a year ago. During the deal, Shawna led people and operations. After the acquisition her role expanded at FIS Global to Director of Product, continuing to work with the Railz team and product she knows best.

Her day to day is simple to describe and hard to do. Be the glue. Keep shipping. Train sales. Partner with marketing on assets and playbooks. Shape the roadmap. Win executive buy-in. Help a large enterprise understand open banking and how to monetize APIs. It is classic post-acquisition work, handled with a startup and people-focused mindset.

Why HR and What Keeps Her Going

Strategy pulled her into HR. Not policy for its own sake, but aligning business goals with human capability. She is driven by change at two levels: individual careers and company performance.

She set a personal BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) early on. Help 50 people land their ideal jobs. She is at 13 and counting. The unexpected messages from former teammates are proof that the work sticks.

Bring HR in Early

The toughest moments happen when leadership makes a decision and asks HR to deliver it without context. Shawna’s view is clear. Bring HR in early and you plan better, improve outcomes, and communicate with credibility.

If restructuring is on the table, give HR financial visibility. Build contingency plans with clear triggers. Budget for severance and outplacement. Make warm introductions. Offer retention programs for those who stay. Early partnership protects people and performance.

What Non-HR Leaders Should Know About HR

HR is a strategic lever when you let it be. Too often it is engaged reactively for plans or terminations. Shawna’s stance is practical. Give HR full context and access to the real work in sales, product, and engineering. Only then can HR design compensation, performance, and enablement that actually moves the numbers.

Shawna’s Business Audit

When Shawna joins a team, she runs a quick audit.

• What are you working on right now
  
  
• What is getting in your way
  
  
• If you could add one tool or change one process, what would it be and why
  
  The answers surface quick wins, hidden friction, and automation ideas that busy teams stopped raising because no one asked.

AI in HR: Ethics, Enablement, and Org-Wide Adoption

AI is here and it is powerful. Shawna points to two responsibilities.

1. Use it ethically. Be careful with bias and privacy, especially in people programs.
   
   
2. Make it a habit across the organization. HR should sanction and enable AI use with clear parameters, training, and expectations. Measure adoption and sophistication over time. Use AI to speed up audits, survey analysis, and program design so people can focus on judgment and strategy.
   

Collage HR in Practice: Intuitive, All-in-One, and Loved by Teams

Shawna has been a Collage champion since 2017. Adoption was quick with minimal training, which she credits to intuitive design and accessible pricing. Shawna has provided very valuable feedback to our product team over the years, much of which is in the Collage HR product today.

What stood out

• 1:1s with custom questions. Push pre-reads, capture themes, and allow HR to understand and follow up on workload, roadblocks, and manager coaching.
  
  
• 360 performance reviews. Shawna provided great feedback for our  product team to support self-reviews, peer feedback, leaders-to-leaders, soft and hard deadlines, and reminders.
  
  
• ATS to HRIS flow. Candidates move directly into the HRIS with salary, title, and notes preserved.
  
  
• Training, dynamic forms, and tasks. Smooth onboarding, form collection, and training.
  
  
• Homepage and announcements. Out of office, key links, and announcements that help you run your business.
  
  
• Contractors and international holidays. Deliver the same streamlined experience to global contributors and respect local time off.
  

Transferable Skills and Treating HR Like Product

HR skills travel. Shawna ran people operations like a product manager. Pilot programs, user feedback, a clear north star, and metrics. Recruiting maps to sales. Enablement maps to product marketing. For HR pros eyeing another path, she is a real example of how to translate those skills.

Coaching, Community, and a North Star

Alongside FIS, Shawna advises startups at DMZ and coaches leaders through Unicorn Labs. The through line is steady. Build learning cultures. Remove friction. Help people get out of their own way. Keep moving people to work that fits who they are and make that your north star.

Shawna’s path is a reminder that HR belongs at the strategy table and often belongs in product rooms too. When you connect people, process, and product with clarity, you do more than avoid mistakes. You accelerate progress and help everybody who is involved.

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