Karen Wianecki
M.PL., MCIP, RPP
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Karen Wianecki (she/her) is a professional planner, mediator and facilitator who specializes in community and stakeholder engagement. Karen holds an undergraduate specialist degree in Geography from the University of Toronto and a master’s in urban & Regional Planning from Queen’s University. She studied environmental mediation through the Harvard Mediation Project and received Advanced ADR accreditation through the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor. Karen is one of three Canadian mediators on the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution Roster as well as the Native Sub-Roster based in Tucson, Arizona and is a Settlement Conference Facilitator for the Ontario Energy Board.
Karen spent sixteen years of her career with the Ontario Public Service, working for the Ministries of Municipal Affairs, Housing and Natural Resources as a planner and policy advisor, Cabinet Committee coordinator, Manager of Strategic Planning and Coordinator of Ontario’s first environmental dispute resolution program where she oversaw the province-wide work of 21 mediators and 8 arbitrators. Karen left the OPS in 2000 to establish Planning Solutions Inc., a professional consulting practice devoted to community and stakeholder engagement, facilitation, public policy development and environmental issues management.
Through her consulting practice, Karen has had the pleasure of working closely with numerous public and private sector clients in Ontario as well as in Western Canada. She has worked extensively with Aboriginal organizations and communities, Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments, special interest and environmental non-government organizations, industry, and business as well as with residents on a range of contentious issues. Karen subscribes to the notion that process is as important as product. Engaging governments at all levels, industry, and communities builds trust and creates social capital. Co-creative engagement, properly designed and facilitated, leads to innovation and learning which in turn can produce results that are truly remarkable.
Karen is based in the GTA.
