Talent tempered by deals worth billions

By PAUL PANCKHURST

John Buchanan (59), an entrant in the Who's Who of Britain, is one of those business talents we never knew we had.

The one-time Otara Intermediate and Auckland Grammar pupil rose within global oil giant BP to play a key role in negotiating the types of deals that come with nine zeroes attached.

As BP's finance director, the London-based Buchanan made one-day return trips to New York by Concorde for secret meetings at JFK Airport, working on the $100 billion merger with oil company Amoco in 1998.

He retired from the BP board last year, but is an independent director of four giant public companies: drugmaker AstraZeneca, British retailer Boots, Australian miner BHP Billiton, and the telco Vodafone. He has only just joined the latter two.

Post-BP, and with the board meetings of BHP regularly drawing him down to this part of the world, Buchanan and his wife, Rosemary - a one-time New Zealand ballet dancer - are planning to spend more time at their apartment in Auckland, staying in closer touch with friends and relatives.

Happily for the business school at Auckland University, Buchanan has also flagged his willingness to be on tap as a teaching resource.

Buchanan grew up in Papatoetoe.

He recalls a child named David Lange was a year ahead at school.

Later, says Buchanan, he packed frozen lamb hearts at the Westfield freezing works to fund his studies.

His route into BP in London and what became a 32-year career with the company was as a master of science and a PhD in organic chemistry at Auckland University, topped off by post-doctoral research at Oxford University in England.

Buchanan's career with BP quickly flicked him into the management fast lane.

He had spells in the 1970s at Havard Business School and with the UK Cabinet Office's think tank.

During a stint as marketing and operations manager in New Zealand in the early 1980s, he oversaw the introduction of Smurfs - the Belgian cartoon characters - as a marketing tool on service station forecourts.

"It's been just an extraordinary career run for me," he said. "It's been brilliant."

In London, he is the chair of UK Friends of the University of Auckland.

In Auckland, he presents as a vein of knowledge and experience - ready to be mined.