Senior Advisor / M&A

Cameron Vernest

Location: Toronto, Canada

Cameron Vernest is Senior Advisor — M&A at Opie Capital. He is Chief Executive Officer of Spearhead Corp Dev and concurrently Partner at FirePower Capital — two of Canada's mid-market M&A firms.

Cameron's career has been built on origination, strategic partnerships, and operating roles in technology — most notably leading global sales and partnerships at TradeGecko through its acquisition by Intuit, and building Spearhead Corp Dev into a repeatable, AI-augmented origination engine.

Career arc

Chief Executive Officer, Spearhead Corp Dev (Jul 2025 – present); previously Managing Partner & Co-Head (Feb 2020 – Jun 2025).
Partner, Origination & Partnerships, FirePower Capital (Mar 2022 – present); previously Associate Partner and Head of Origination & Partnerships (Feb 2020 onward).
Founding Member, Pavilion (Dec 2018 – Oct 2025) — early-supporter designation in the B2B sales/marketing executive community.
Vice President, Global Sales & Partnerships, TradeGecko (Nov 2016 – Feb 2020) — inventory and order-management platform, acquired by Intuit and rebranded as QuickBooks Commerce.
ICT Advisory Group Member, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (Sep 2015 – Feb 2020).

Selected deals or wins

HostPapa's acquisition of Hostwinds (2026) — multi-year origination effort culminating in a strategic carve-out.
Spearhead 2025 — clients transacted on $500M+ in enterprise value across the year, with team-wide engagement of 800+ potential sellers.
Spearhead Q1 2026 — record number of LOIs shared, ~40% increase over the prior high.
Co-developing Bogan, an AI-driven M&A outreach tool, with Patrick W Belliveau and Gambit.

Outside Opie

Annual rider in the Princess Margaret Ride to Conquer Cancer; committee co-chair for ACG Toronto Chapter's annual Capital Connection Conference; Founding Member of Pavilion. Previously served on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (2014 – 2015).