Brent is the Chief Executive Office of Netsafe, New Zealand’s online safety charity. He has broad and extensive experience in regulatory, privacy, safety and justice environments along with a good understanding of both local and global online safety ecosystems. He was New Zealand’s second Domain Name Commissioner (2017 -2022) overseeing the .nz domain name space. He has worked for two Privacy Commissioners and an Australian Senator.
He has previously lived and worked in Australia holding senior positions at various integrity bodies, for example, the Australian Telecommunications Ombudsman, the Independent Broad Based Anti-Corruption Commission, the Victorian Institute of Teaching and the Victorian Privacy Commissioner’s Office.
Brent serves on the Governance Committee of the Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety Harms adopted by Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Google (You Tube), TikTok, Twitch and Twitter. He is involved with several international bodies, including the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution and the Global Internet Forum to Counter-Terrorism. He is an Associate member of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand and Member of Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa iwi, the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa (New Zealand). He is Co-Founder of Taranaki Agribusiness Green Meadows Beef.
He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand with Law and Arts Degrees and has a Graduate Certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution ( Industry) from Boxhill Institute of TAFE Melbourne, Australia.
Some of his recent collaborations include the development of Global Principles on Digital Safety: Translating International Human Rights for the Digital Context for the World Economic Forum, Project Dragon with the University of Swansea to develop Online Grooming Spotting Tools and Advisor to the University of Otago Department of Marketing on its Datification of Children Project ( 2023-2026). He is an industry representative of the Human-Centred Phishing Susceptibility Research programme, comprising of researchers and partners from The University of Auckland, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Tainui Group Holdings, NIWA and ESR, Datacom. The research program is examining aspects of social engineering, psychology and cyber security to focus on the people side of phishing attacks.
