Richard Smith Is currently a Principal Lecturer in the School of Education at Toi Ohomai in Rotorua a role he has held since May 2021. JHe was briefly an Associate Professor FREEDOM Institute of Higher Education in Hamilton, January to May 2020 but unfortunately lost his job due to the effects of COVID 19 as this PTE was 100 per cent international students. Whilst in the first term the institution had students, due to both the lockdown and border closures no new international students were able to come to Aotearoa New Zealand for classes. Richard was previously employed in the School of Indigenous Graduate Studies at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi in Whakatāne July 2013 to April 2019. Prior to this he was employed in the Work, Learning and Leadership area of the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Australia. Richard has formerly taught in universities and higher education institutions in Singapore (The National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University) and at the Universities of Canterbury and AUT and also Unitec Aotearoa New Zealand. He has participated in consultancies in for the Ministry of Education in Aotearoa New Zealand and also the Ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Richard conducts research on educational leadership, educational policy, adult education and the sociology of higher education and academic identities. He has conducted research in collaboration with educational leaders (in schools) and also been involved in a trans-national study with colleagues in New Zealand and Australia. In addition, he was also involved in a cross-disciplinary study in New Zealand in the Health and Physical Education area. Richard was in 2010 made a Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Administration and Leadership Society (NZEALS). He has been on the national councils of two national professional organisations in Aotearoa (NZEALS and NZARE, and was a former Vice President of NZARE), and was back on the NZARE Council 2013-2017. Richard also sits on the editorial boards of a number of international and nationally-based journals and regularly reviews and acts as a referee for national and international conferences and journals.