Antonio Brandao is the Director of Cybersecurity Services at BCNET, a not-for-profit shared services consortium serving 44 post-secondary member institutions across British Columbia. Based in Vancouver, he brings a rare blend of military discipline and deep technical cybersecurity expertise to the Canadian higher education sector.
His career spans roles as Head Professor of CyberWarfare at Brazil’s Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (AMAN), System Network and Security Administrator at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and SIEM Systems Administrator and Cybersecurity Architect at BCNET, before ascending to his current role. A former Brazilian Army Lieutenant Colonel, he planned and coordinated operations across multiple teams and spent five years teaching cybersecurity at a Brazilian military academy.
His advanced SANS and GIAC certifications place him among a small cohort of practitioners operating at the intersection of threat hunting, cybersecurity architecture, and organizational leadership. Brandao served at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games and was invited as Results and IT Manager for Modern Pentathlon at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. He is currently an advisor to Operation: Defend the North Vancouver 2026, in July 2026 he received the 2026 ISACA Community Leadership Award, launched his book ‘Unlock the Secrets of the Dark Web,’ at BSides Vancouver.
Business Bio
BCNET is a member-centric, not-for-profit, collaborative shared services organization dedicated to the needs of British Columbia’s higher education and research institutions. The consortium serves 44 post-secondary members across the province, pooling expertise and infrastructure so that individual institutions do not have to build every capability alone.
Within that mandate, cybersecurity has become one of the most consequential shared services BCNET delivers. Under Brandao’s direction, the organization defends a community spanning hundreds of sites, from large research universities to small colleges, many of which lack the scale to mount a sophisticated security posture on their own. The work covers threat monitoring, architecture, incident response, and long-horizon planning required to keep classrooms open and research programs running.
BCNET’s model treats security as a collective good: every attack stopped on behalf of one member strengthens the defences of the whole community, and every capability built centrally need not be duplicated forty-four times over.
In His Words
“If I am honest, my entrepreneurial spark did not come from a childhood lemonade stand. It came the day I decided to bet on myself and rebuild my career from the ground up in a new country. I had spent years as an Army officer and as a competitive fencer, two worlds that look nothing alike but teach the same lesson: discipline, patience, and the nerve to commit fully in the split second that matters. Cybersecurity became the third thread. Arriving in Canada, I realized I did not have to leave any of those identities behind. The entrepreneurial move was to weave them into one.
Fencing taught me to read an opponent, control the distance, and strike at exactly the right moment — precisely what defending a network demands. The military taught me to stay calm when the stakes are highest. Reinventing myself in Canada meant treating my own career like a venture: no rank to fall back on, no home advantage, just a decision to build something new on the strength of what I already knew.
HIGH-STAKES ROOMS
My path has been a series of high-stakes environments that each demanded I lead differently. I began as an Army officer, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel, and spent several years teaching cybersecurity at a military academy in Brazil. From there I took on IT and results-management roles at major international sporting events, settings where failure is not an option and the whole world is watching the clock. That is where I learned to operate under real pressure, coordinate across organizations that do not normally work together, and deliver on an immovable deadline. Today I lead cybersecurity for BCNET as Director of Cybersecurity Services. The through-line has been the same: go where the stakes are high, build the defences, and bring people along.
WHAT I GAVE UP
Every chapter of my life has asked me to give something up. The military asks for time and presence. Competitive fencing asked for early mornings and the quiet discipline of training when no one is watching. And cybersecurity does not respect evenings or holidays, because a threat never checks the calendar.
The biggest sacrifice was the one I deliberately chose: leaving behind rank, reputation, and the comfort of home to rebuild my career from scratch in Canada. Starting over taught me humility and clarified what actually matters. Balance has never come naturally to someone trained to push through; the athlete and the officer in me both default to one more rep, one more hour. What I have learned is that discipline has to point in both directions. I now guard time for the people I love with the same seriousness I once reserved only for the mission.
THE MOMENT IT CLICKED
The pivotal moment was not an investment or a lucky break. It was a realization that came from looking at my family. When you rebuild your career from scratch in a new country, there are days you question whether the risk was worth it. Mine came into focus when I understood who I was really doing this for. My family was the reason I left the comfort of an established name behind, and they became the reason I refused to fail at building a new one.
The confidence came the first time the pieces clicked: when the officer’s discipline, the athlete’s focus, and years in the field started compounding into real traction, and I could see the path I had bet on actually opening up. Not because success was guaranteed, but because I finally trusted that everything I had carried with me was enough to build something lasting in Canada.
THE PEOPLE BESIDE ME
Mentorship has been the difference-maker at every stage, and three people stand out. The first is my fencing master, José María Pereira. For more than ten years, he was my mentor, teaching me not only the sabre but a whole way of life built on discipline, respect, and precision. He passed away two years ago, and I carry his lessons into everything I do. This is my way of thanking him.
Ivor MacKay at BCNET gave me the opportunity to build a new career here and the guidance to grow into it, teaching me how to read and handle situations I had never faced before. I am deeply grateful for the chance he took on me.
I also want to recognize Trish Pekeles, who served as interim CEO at BCNET during the most intense stretch of my cybersecurity career. Together we planned extensively how to strengthen the security posture of both BCNET and our members, and her partnership pushed my thinking and leadership to a higher level.
LEADING WITHOUT RANK
My leadership started in a command structure where authority came with rank. Teaching changed that. In front of a classroom, you lead by making people want to understand and follow. Moving into civilian cybersecurity leadership completed the shift. Today I lead a technical team where trust, clarity, and shared purpose matter far more than hierarchy. My job is to set the direction, remove obstacles, and give skilled people room to do their best work.
What keeps me honest is the mission beneath it — protecting institutions that educate and conduct research, many of which cannot defend themselves on their own. Whenever a decision gets hard, I measure it against that purpose rather than against ego or convenience.
THE REAL BUSINESS
My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: start before you feel ready, and let real problems teach you. Almost everything I have built came from seeing a gap and deciding to close it rather than waiting for perfect conditions. Learn relentlessly — I am still earning certifications and still consider myself a student, because the moment you think you have arrived is the moment you stop being useful.
If you ask about my business, I will not hand you a company name, because the enterprise I am most committed to is the person I am trying to become. My real business is simple to state and demanding to live: to be a better man for my family, and to serve a purpose larger than myself. Every threat we stop is a classroom that stays open, a researcher who keeps working, a community that stays safe. My family is the reason I show up; society is who I show up for. That is why this will never be just a job to me.
THE ASK AHEAD
My ask is not for capital. It is for opportunity and challenge. Through 2026 and into 2027, I am looking to grow further in my leadership role and take on harder problems — expanded responsibility to shape cybersecurity strategy at a larger scale, complex real-world challenges that stretch what I know, and collaborators who push each other to keep learning.
The legacy I care about is measured in two places: at home and in the field. At home, I want to be present for my family and be an example they are proud of. In my field, I want to leave every environment more secure than I found it. If the discipline and standards I brought to the work outlast my involvement — if others carry them forward — then I will have built something that matters.”
Author Profile
- This story is created in collaboration between Helen Siwak and the featured subject. As the founder and publisher of Portfolio.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine, Helen works closely with entrepreneurs to share their paths of innovation, resilience, and growth. Each story in this series is co-developed through interviews and first-person insights, blending authentic voices with Helen’s editorial expertise to highlight the remarkable individuals shaping British Columbia’s business landscape.
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