Maximizer Names Gabe Karkanis President and Chief Product Officer
Gabe Karkanis Named President of Maximizer: Leading the next chapter of AI in CRM
VANCOUVER, B.C. Maximizer Software Inc., today announced the appointment of Gabe Karkanis as President and Chief Product Officer. Gabe succeeds Mike Curliss and now leads the Vancouver-based CRM company into its next phase of growth.
Gabe steps into the role with a clear mission: to make Maximizer CRM the AI-powered partner that helps advisors and sales teams spend less time on admin and more time with the people they serve.
A product leader who knows Maximizer from the inside
Gabe brings more than a decade of experience in the technology industry. For more than two years before his promotion, he served as Maximizer’s Senior Director of Product. In that role, he saw firsthand how quickly technology is changing the CRM category, and how much more it will change in the years ahead.
Gabe’s path to Maximizer started on the front lines of the industry he now serves. Before moving into product, he spent years as a financial advisor, building a book of over 200 clients and learning firsthand what it’s like to juggle client records across a patchwork of disconnected tools. That experience, paired with a background in computer science and seven years running his own B2B software business, is what shaped his approach to CRM: practical, integrated, and built around how advisors actually work, not around a features checklist.
As president, Gabe works with the leads of every team at Maximizer, including engineering, professional services, product management, customer success, sales, and marketing. Together, they drive the company’s growth across both product strategy and business strategy.
His vision: AI that gets work done with you
“We’re going to take AI to the next level,” says Gabe.
Five years ago, CRM largely served as a place to log communication and take notes. Gabe sees the next generation of CRM taking action on your behalf, always with your approval. He calls this CRM intelligence and automation: Agentic AI agents that complete tasks for the advisor instead of just answering questions. Some examples are: 1) having your CRM fill in a new account opening form for a client, 2) while updating the CRM for any detected client changes, and 3) drafting a follow-up response email, all within minutes of finishing a live meeting with the client. That is CRM automation in action.
For financial advisors, the payoff is time and quality of service. Maximizer’s research shows advisors spend 35% to 40% of their week on administrative tasks. An administrative assistant can cost $60,000 to $100,000 CAD a year. Gabe’s vision is to develop a “super-powered” AI assistant, backed by Maximizer’s AI tools, empowering existing financial advisor assistants to support more advisors while delivering a higher quality of service.
“It’s a time and money play which increases the margins for advisor teams,” he says. In his view, AI in financial services is no longer a way to get ahead in 2026. It’s table stakes.
The stakes are real. There are a growing number of start-ups building AI-powered CRM tools right now, but Maximizer has a distinct edge with three decades of trust protecting investors’ data and an industry-leading architecture keeping all client data and processing within the bounds of Canada. Gabe sees this gap as Maximizer’s advantage: pairing new AI capabilities with the security architecture, compliance depth, and industry knowledge that come from decades spent serving regulated financial services teams.
What this means for you
Under Gabe’s leadership, Maximizer CRM will keep adding AI capabilities built around how advisors and sales teams actually work. You can expect tools that help you:
- Spend less time on manual admin and more time with clients
- Walk into every meeting prepared, with client history summarized for you
- Stay on top of compliance items and review dates before they slip by
More new functionality is on the way in the coming months.
For now, the priority is straightforward: give advisors and sales teams an AI-powered partner they can trust with their most sensitive work, one that saves them real time without asking them to change how they operate.
Want to read more from Gabe? Check out his full feature in the fall 2026 issue of Advisor Unlimited.
Ready to see what a modern CRM can do for your business? Book a free demo of Maximizer CRM today.
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