After 30 years in technology management, Ginny Dybenko climbed off the corporate carousel two years ago to become the business dean at Wilfrid Laurier University. Having survived the high-tech implosion of 2000-2002, she was expecting a less tumultuous life - until the current financial crisis blew up those expectations. Ms. Dybenko, a former executive at Bell Canada, as well as with a startup software company, is seeing a private sector crisis turn into a big public sector headache.

A lot of people are fearful now. Have you ever felt moments of fear?

In industry, from day to day. If you're not watching the market every second, you risk becoming so embroiled in whatever you're doing - I call it drinking your Kool-Aid - that you'll miss the big market shifts. An example was Bell with the Internet. All the telecommunications companies really missed the very beginning of the Internet sweep.

But in my personal career, I haven't been fearful. I was always engaged in leadership of the new and the happening, so I was always surrounded by upbeat people who saw a very optimistic future.

Have you always been good in math?

I have indeed. I'm a graduate in mathematics and have always led myself to that.

You once said about your math training: 'I was raised like a guy. It never occurred to me I couldn't do these things.'

That's very true and, truth be told, my dad was a mathematician and I was surrounded with that from a very early age. It was like a duck to water.

Where will your grads find jobs now?

We just finished our big fall convocation and when every single person crossed the stage, I shook their hand and asked if they had a job. I won't say every one of them did, but it was certainly above 90 per cent.

Shall I come back to you after the next graduation and find out how many are hired?

I'll do the same data collection and I'll come back to you. I expect a little falloff especially because we deal primarily in the accounting and finance area. It's finance that is being hit, obviously.

How do you differentiate yourself as a business school in this competitive market?

We have had an excellence in accounting and finance, so we start with a terrific foundation.

Now we have two more areas to provide differentiation. First is supply-chain management which is imperative given the amount of trade - and the thickening of the border. The other is marketing and it all comes down to brand. So we're developing a brand program with a lot of help from industry and ad agencies.

The other thing you need is money, what with government cutbacks and donors hit by market losses.

Fundraising is always an issue for us. ... Our job will be to streamline everything we can within the system. It's pretty bare bones now to be honest, after the number of years education has been starved in Ontario.

We want to use our expertise to generate new revenues. We're looking at the development of an executive program that focuses on management of technology. ...

What do you advise students to do in this crisis?

We tell them to get their training. We believe in experiential learning, so that through our co-op program we think our graduates have a bit of an edge. ... Right now we are telling them to become as broad as they possibly can.

Will more students apply to business school now?

That typically happens when we hit slow periods. People decide: 'Since it's slow anyway, why not go back to get the MBA or additional training to help differentiate myself in a more competitive market.' But the trouble is it's kind of a perfect storm. You get more students and if the government backs away from its commitments, you have fewer funds to do it with.

What do you miss most about the private sector?

If anything, it is the propensity to make a decision and move very quickly. My last five years in industry were spent in a small high-tech startup. We would wake up one morning thinking we needed a new product and by noon that day, the plans were well-advanced. In seven days, we had it to market.

University requires a more collaborative decision-making process. It's a little annoying, but a lot of strength comes from that, too. If you are able to line a number of disparately focused professors to a single direction, you get a tremendous amount of gain.

What do you not miss?

I would say the roller-coaster ride, although to be honest it's coming now into education as well. It's waking up every morning and really wondering if you should take a lunch to work that day. I lived in a high-tech startup in the midst of the telecom bubble bursting, so you never knew from day to day if you would have a job.

Was that a fearful time?

I would say it was. I had a lot of confidence that in putting my head down and continuing to deliver, at least I was contributing to the bottom line. But you just didn't know.

*****

Ginny Dybenko

Title: Dean, School of Business and Economics

Wilfrid Laurier University

Waterloo, Ont.

Born: London, Ont.

Education: 1970: BA, mathematics, University of Western Ontario

1972: Master's, mathematics, University of Waterloo

Career highlights:

Spent 25 years in Bell Canada, in progressively senior roles

Played major role in building Canada's first information highway

Served as president and CEO of Bell Advanced Communications

Over five years at software startup Syndesis Ltd., of Richmond Hill, Ont. Served as vice-president, marketing

September, 2006: Became Laurier's business dean

Tuesday: The Globe and Mail's special report on MBA schools