John Buchanan is currently a Professor in Working Life in the Discipline of Business Information Systems and Co-Director of the Mental Wealth Initiative at the University of Sydney Business School.  His key domains of expertise are wage determination, workforce development and the role of work in social as well as economic development.  In recent years his research has examined how to overcome problems in competency-based systems of vocational education by moving to more coherent, ‘capabilities’ approaches to defining expertise. This research involves, inter alia, using modern methods of data science to achieve this objective.  His current research interests concern (i) understanding how mental and not just material aspect of life determine national prosperity and (ii) new directions in occupational reconstruction, especially in the foundational economy. He recently led a multi-disciplinary, international team of researchers preparing a research report for UNESCO on the futures of work and education. For the last two years he was a member of the University of Sydney Enterprise Bargaining Team (union representative) that has resulted in new arrangements to dramatically reduce workloads, decasualise its academic workforce and boost levels of continuing employment by 15 percent.