Vancouver Cybersecurity Leader Antonio Brandao Receives 2026 ISACA Community Leadership Award

Antonio Brandao, Director of Cybersecurity Services at BCNET, receives the 2026 ISACA Community Leadership Award for contributions to BC cybersecurity.

VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA, July 22, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Antonio Brandao, Director of Cybersecurity Services at BCNET, has been named a recipient of the 2026 ISACA Community Leadership Award. The award, presented through the ISACA Vancouver Chapter, of which Brandao is a member, recognizes sustained, high-impact contributions to the professional cybersecurity community.

The recognition reflects years of sustained engagement with the ISACA Vancouver Chapter, including volunteer education, mentorship, and knowledge sharing across British Columbia's higher education and security communities. It arrives following his recent promotion into the role at BCNET, and alongside his advisory position with Operation: Defend the North Vancouver 2026, a national cybersecurity exercise scheduled for October 2026.

At BCNET, a not-for-profit shared services consortium serving 44 post-secondary member institutions across British Columbia, Brandao strengthens cybersecurity readiness across the province's post-secondary and research sector, supporting institutions, professionals, students, and researchers who face increasing cyber risk with constrained resources.

Brandao's leadership extends well beyond his official job title. He has spoken at events including BCNET CONNECT, BSides Vancouver, the TRU Privacy and Security Conference, VanTUG, siberX, and ISACA Vancouver, addressing practical topics such as the dark web, threat intelligence, attacker behaviour, and red-team activity in higher education. His dark web presentations, in particular, translate a complex and often sensationalized subject into a genuinely practical one, helping audiences understand how stolen credentials are traded.

As a mentor in the ISACA Vancouver Mentorship Program, Brandao supports professionals building careers in cybersecurity, governance, risk, and assurance, drawing on his own experience as an immigrant from Brazil to support newcomers entering the field. He has also advised start-ups, including Cyber Armour, and organized hands-on learning opportunities such as the BCNET CONNECT Capture-the-Flag competitions.

His credibility is grounded in a distinctive and hard-earned personal background. A former Brazilian Army Lieutenant Colonel who once coordinated operations for 1,500 personnel, Brandao spent seven years as a cybersecurity professor at Brazil's Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras before progressing internally at BCNET from SIEM Systems Administrator to Cybersecurity Architect to his current role.

Antonio represents community leadership in the fullest sense, the nomination for the award noted, citing his work strengthening cybersecurity, mentoring professionals, supporting newcomers, helping start-ups, and making cybersecurity knowledge more accessible and actionable.

The award adds to a year of significant milestones for Brandao, who also advises the Operation: Defend the North Vancouver 2026 organizing committee ahead of its October exercise, further extending his community education efforts into a wider public audience.

About Antonio Brandao

Brandao is Director of Cybersecurity Services at BCNET, based in Vancouver. Brandao's career spans System Network and Security Administrator at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and internal progression at BCNET from SIEM Systems Administrator to Cybersecurity Architect to his current role.
Brandao holds a Bachelor of Military Science and a Master of Military Science from institutions in Brazil, plus a bachelor's degree in Information Systems from Universidade Católica de Santos and honours diplomas from Seneca Polytechnic. Brandao's certifications include CISSP, GCDA, and GWAPT, alongside SANS coursework in incident response and threat hunting.

Brandao served as Results and IT Manager for Modern Pentathlon at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and volunteered at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games. Brandao currently advises Operation: Defend the North Vancouver 2026 and recently published Unlock the Secrets of the Dark Web: Theoretical Instruction and Hands-On Labs, available in Kindle and paperback editions.

About ISACA

ISACA is a global community of information systems and information technology professionals working to advance digital trust for individuals, enterprises, and society. For more than 50 years, ISACA has served the professional IS/IT community, leading the industry in career-advancing credentials such as CISA and CISM, while bringing expertise to enterprises through its globally recognized COBIT framework.

ISACA serves more than 195,000 members across 230 chapters in 190 countries, connecting professionals to peers, mentorship, job opportunities, and volunteer roles within their own local communities, including the ISACA Vancouver Chapter. The organization is dedicated to guiding and educating the global IS/IT community and governments on the positive potential of technology while guarding against its risks, supported by the non-profit ISACA Foundation, which works to build equity and diversity within the technology field.

Helen Siwak
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