Calgary runs on energy, and its security community reflects that. The cybersecurity leaders below protect pipelines, oil sands operations, midstream facilities, a pay-by-bank fintech, and an advisory practice serving clients across the city’s economy. Operational technology security, the discipline of defending industrial control systems, runs through most of these roles. Three of them have spent more than a decade at the companies they now help secure.
Craig Coughlan – CISO, Suncor Energy
Craig Coughlan became Chief Information Security Officer of Suncor Energy in January 2024, after roughly three years in earlier roles at the company. Suncor operates oil sands facilities, refineries, and a national retail network, which puts its security program at the intersection of corporate IT and industrial operations. Coughlan oversees the company’s information security strategy, policies, and risk management program, identifying and prioritizing cybersecurity risks across the organization. He holds an MSc.
Kevin Altman – VP Enterprise Security & CSO, TC Energy
Kevin Altman has spent more than 14 years at TC Energy, the pipeline operator behind some of North America’s largest natural gas and liquids infrastructure. He became Vice President of Enterprise Security and Chief Security Officer in October 2024, working from Calgary in a hybrid role. The role integrates cyber and physical security under one remit, a structure increasingly common among pipeline operators whose assets stretch across thousands of kilometres of remote terrain. Altman holds CISSP certification and an MBA.
Jodie Struthers – CISO, Paramount Commerce
Healthcare compliance is where Jodie Struthers built her foundation. She spent more than three years at MedStack, the healthcare cloud compliance company, including a stint as Director of Security and Operations from February 2023 to October 2024. She became Chief Information Security Officer of Paramount Commerce in December 2024, securing the pay-by-bank payment technology the fintech provides to merchants and consumers. Struthers works from Calgary. Her move from one heavily regulated sector to another reflects a pattern in payments, where bank-grade controls and regulatory expectations define the work.
Tim McCreight – CEO & Founder, TaleCraft Security
Tim McCreight has held senior security roles across nearly every corner of Calgary’s economy. He served as Chief Security Officer for the City of Calgary from May 2019 to March 2021, led enterprise security as a managing director at Canadian Pacific Railway, and held security leadership positions at Suncor Energy, the Government of Alberta, and CGI, where he was national director for market development and strategic advisory. He is a former president of ASIS International, the global security management association, and a longtime proponent of Enterprise Security Risk Management, which treats security as a business risk function rather than a technical silo. McCreight founded TaleCraft Security in August 2024, after a year as vice president for Canada at Apollo Information Systems. He holds MSc, CISSP, CPP, and CISA credentials.
Harry Diamantopoulos – Senior Manager, Cyber Security Operations, Cenovus Energy
Harry Diamantopoulos has worked at Cenovus Energy since February 2021, becoming Senior Manager of Cybersecurity Operations in October 2022. He leads the development and execution of enterprise-wide security operations at one of Canada’s largest integrated oil and gas producers. His accountability spans corporate IT systems and upstream operational technology, the industrial control environment behind the company’s oil sands and conventional production. He holds CCISO, CISSP, and CISM certifications.
Patrick Walker – Director, Cyber Security & Governance, Pembina Pipeline
Patrick Walker has spent more than 14 years at Pembina Pipeline Corporation, the Calgary-based midstream operator whose pipelines and facilities move and process hydrocarbons across Western Canada. He became Director of Cyber Security and Governance in December 2024, providing senior leadership and oversight across the company’s enterprise cyber security operations portfolio. Walker brings more than 20 years of experience spanning cybersecurity, governance, and business process improvement. He has publicly championed the creation of operational technology security roles at Pembina that work alongside the company’s SCADA and operational teams, building security capability inside industrial operations rather than adding it from IT.
Built for the Long Haul
Tenure is the pattern here. Altman and Walker have each spent more than 14 years at the companies they now help protect, and Coughlan and Diamantopoulos rose into their current roles from earlier positions inside their organizations. McCreight’s career runs through much of the rest of the city: the municipal government, the railway, an oil sands producer, and the province. Struthers came in from healthcare compliance rather than energy, a reminder that Calgary’s security talent pool now feeds fintech and SaaS companies too. In a sector where the systems being defended are physical plants that run for decades, that kind of continuity gives these leaders a working knowledge of their environments that is difficult to hire from outside.
Discover more CISOs securing their organizations:
- Edmonton’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Ottawa’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Quebec City’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Richmond’s CISOs to Watch
- From the Plains: Wichita’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.