Lisa Melchior, founder of Vertu Capital, is an experienced private equity professional with a 20+ year track record of building businesses and successful investment outcomes. Prior to founding Vertu, Lisa led the North American Technology Group at OMERS Private Equity and started her career at CIBC World Markets.
Over the course of her career, Lisa has invested nearly $1.4B in over 20 companies across various sectors through multiple cycles. Her technology sector experience spans application software, HCIT, cleantech, and tech-enabled services, to industrial technology. Her investments have included growth capital, buyouts, and public to privates.
While Lisa’s orientation is as a long-term owner of businesses, she has successfully managed changes in ownership at critical strategic stages, both by taking companies public and en bloc sales.
Outside of Vertu, Lisa sits on the boards of Real Matters (REAL.TO), a leading mortgage lending technology company, as well as The Toronto Biennial of Art. She is also Chair of the Canadian Women in Private Equity Mentorship Program and serves as a director of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA). Lisa’s previous board experience includes various public and private companies, including technology companies in Canada, the U.S. and U.K.
Lisa holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University and a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from the University of Western Ontario.
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Kim was previously Chief Financial Officer then Chief Compliance Officer at TorQuest Partners, where she gained valuable experience building the firm from the ground up. Leveraging her broad skillset at Vertu, Kim is excited to build an offering that reimagines partnership and collaboration to elevate Canada’s excellent technology companies. Kim believes that Vertu’s guiding principles, strong core values, and genuine commitment to diversity of thought and alignment, is a unique combination will drive real impact and underpin Vertu’s success.
Kim began her career at Deloitte, where she focused M&A tax, and private equity and venture capital fund formation and advisory services before joining TorQuest in 2005. As former Chair of the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (“CVCA”) CFO Task Force, a role that she held for 5 years, she helped promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among private equity and venture capital CFOs across Canada. Kim is also co-founder of the David Cornfield Melanoma Fund and serves on its Board.
Kim is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and holds an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from York University.
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Gil previously spent 8 years at CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) where he was a Senior Principal responsible for leading the Direct Private Equity Group’s technology vertical. At CPPIB, Gil invested in and worked with several market leading technology and enterprise software businesses.
Prior to joining CPPIB, Gil worked at Lake Capital Partners, a mid-market private equity firm based in Chicago, where he focused on investing in the technology and business services sectors. He also previously worked at Bain & Company in Chicago and Singapore.
Gil holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a Bachelor of Engineering Science from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Arts in Honors Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business.
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Mitul is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA) and holds an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
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Mr. Kafka previously worked at OMERS Private Equity with Ms. Melchior on numerous transactions, after starting his career on the Mergers and Acquisitions team at Scotiabank.
Eric graduated from McMaster University with an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree and a minor in Economics. Prior to his professional career, he was a member of the Canadian National Gymnastics Team and represented Canada at the 2003 Pan American Games and at international competitions around the world.
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Bryan also spent five years at KPMG, where he was a member of the Transaction Services team. In this role, Bryan led financial due diligence engagements for international private equity and corporate clients across diversified industries.
Bryan is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA) and holds degrees from both the University of Cambridge and McMaster University.
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Previously, Pallavi worked as a Senior Associate at Whitehorse Liquidity Partners, where she spent four years developing her skills in private equity operations. She spearheaded the end-to-end process for onboarding, reporting, and investor relations for Funds and Co-investment vehicles.
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Prior to joining Vertu, she worked at Opendoor Technologies in a business operations role, where she launched formal incentive compensation plans for the sales team and supported other strategic sales enablement projects. Eileen previously worked at CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) as an associate, where she supported investment activities in private credit, high yield credit, private equity, and public equities.
Eileen earned an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia and is a Leslie Wong Fellow having graduated from the UBC Portfolio Management Foundation (PMF).
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Rick led the sales, marketing and client relations departments as SVP Sales and Marketing at KUBRA, a leading provider of Billing, Payment, and customer communication software and solutions to enterprise level utility, insurance, and government organizations.
During his 24-year tenure at KUBRA, Rick led the company from $250,000 in revenue to over $160 million USD. Rick help managed the sale of KUBRA in 2014 to the Hearst Corporation in New York.
Rick holds an Honors Commerce Degree from McMaster University and is a graduate of the Hearst Management Institute.
He currently serves on the boards of FlipGive, SoundPays, Wellness Living and Carta Worldwide.
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Previously, Peter co-founded DataSynapse, an infrastructure software company helping global banking clients with mission critical risk/pricing applications. DataSynapse was acquired by TIBCO, where he subsequently served as EVP responsible for its Analytics, B2B, Cloud Computing, Customer Experience and Security product groups. After leaving TIBCO, Peter held the role of CEO at RapidMiner until its acquisition by Altair. RapidMiner is an open-source AI/ML data science platform adopted by over one million users worldwide.
Peter has an MBA from The Wharton School, an MA in International Affairs from the University of Pennsylvania, and an AB cum laude in Government from Harvard College. He is an Emeritus Board member of Upwardly Global and active with the Development Board of Phillips Academy Andover.
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