About HIG
Four decades of
reading organizations.
Hayward Impact Group is a signal intelligence and governance advisory practice. We work where people, leadership, systems and institutional pressure intersect.
John Lloyd Hayward
Founder, Hayward Impact Group
About John Hayward
Leadership as Signal grew from lived practice.
John Hayward's work has repeatedly placed him where people, leadership, systems and institutional pressure intersect. Over four decades, he has worked with boards, executives, public institutions and private organizations: watching, listening, seeing and asking when the words no longer describe reality.
The Leadership as Signal™ framework emerged from that practice. It is not a theory. It is a methodology built from thousands of hours of observation: of what leaders say, what organizations hear, and what the gap between those two things produces.
John works with leaders who are willing to ask the harder question. Not "what should I do?" but "what signal am I actually sending?"
Start a Conversation“I don't need you to agree with me. I want you to become curious enough to ask the next question.”
— John Lloyd Hayward
Associate Profile
Fawzia Karim, CPA, PCP
Fractional CFO & Controller
Reading the signals in the numbers.
Senior financial leadership where it matters most.
Fawzia Karim brings more than a decade of progressive financial leadership across charitable, nonprofit, professional services and private-sector organizations. Her experience extends well beyond accounting. She has worked with boards, finance and audit committees, executive leaders, government funders and operational teams, helping organizations connect financial information with the decisions, systems and responsibilities behind it.
Fawzia currently serves as Fractional CFO with Lionhearts Inc., where her work includes management reporting to the board, financial reporting, planning, budgeting and forecasting. This current fractional leadership role complements her work with Hayward Impact Group and reflects the practical, embedded CFO model she brings to clients.
Previously, as Director of Finance and Human Resources with Engineers Without Borders Canada, Fawzia held responsibility across financial planning, cash flow, forecasting, budgeting, internal controls, audit, regulatory compliance, board reporting and human resources. Her career also includes senior financial roles with organizations including BOMA Toronto, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Canadian Mental Health Association York Region and South Simcoe, DeafBlind Ontario Services and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
At Hayward Impact Group, Fawzia serves as Fractional CFO and Controller, bringing senior financial leadership to organizations that need experienced financial oversight without necessarily requiring a full-time CFO.
Through the Leadership as Signal™ lens, Fawzia helps leaders understand what their financial systems are telling them about the organization itself. She looks beyond financial statements to examine how people, processes, responsibilities, controls and information flows connect to organizational performance.
“She does not simply report the numbers. She helps leadership understand what the numbers are signalling.”
HIG Frameworks and Practice Areas
Compassion with Capacity™
Helping organizations examine whether mission, commitments, people and programs are supported by sufficient financial and operational capacity.
Governance as Container™
Strengthening the financial information, controls, reporting structures and decision pathways that support responsible governance.
Leadership Signal Audit™
Examining what financial reporting, budgeting, controls, accountability and information flow reveal about how the organization is functioning.
Leadership Signal Heat Map™
Helping identify areas where financial, operational or organizational pressures may be creating emerging risk.
Signal Conditioning
Improving how financial information moves through the organization and becomes useful intelligence for leadership and board decision-making.
Operating Principles
Signal over noise
Every organization is broadcasting signals about its health, its culture and its leadership. HIG's work begins with learning to read those signals accurately. Without assumption. Without agenda.
Wholeness over performance
Leadership is not a role. It is the expression of a person in a position of authority. HIG works with the whole leader: not only the strategy, the structure or the style.
Precision over volume
The most important insight is rarely the loudest one. HIG's practice is built on the discipline of asking the right question at the right moment. Then waiting for the answer.
Accountability without blame
Governance and leadership advisory work requires the ability to name what is happening without assigning fault. HIG holds that distinction carefully in every engagement.
Read Our Insights.
Articles, publications and governance reads from Hayward Impact Group.