Leadership Spotlight

Wendy Cukier
Vice-President, Research and Innovation

Wendy Cukier has had a long and distinguished career at the university, with her leadership playing an important role in building a culture of scholarly, research and creative activity at Ryerson. In her current role as Vice-President of Research and Innovation, Wendy is responsible for academic leadership, administration of research and related scholarly activities, as well as the university's international initiatives.

In 1999, Wendy became the first Associate Director of the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management. She also served as Associate Dean, Academic at the Ted Rogers School of Management, and under her leadership, the school launched new graduate business degrees, dramatically expanded research activities and was positioned for accreditation by the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business.

As a leader, Wendy believes in building strong relationships with her team members. She tries to lead by example through self-awareness, self-management and by providing clear expectations as well as ongoing communication and feedback to her team.

With Ryerson’s high potential for growth and endless opportunities for new projects, programs and partners, it can be a challenge as a leader balancing the busy demands of her position and ensuring she’s available to her team when they need her. While Wendy has high expectations of herself and her team, she tries to create a working environment that is supportive and fun to offset the demanding nature of their work.

Her advice to those moving into a leadership role is to be adaptable. “You need to know what works with whom and under what conditions. Sometimes you may just need to role up your sleeves and get into the weeds in order to help meet a goal or a deadline and sometimes you just need to support your team and get out of their way. Being able to adjust the context and the situation is key.”

Wendy’s leadership philosophy is to be the best you can be. “My role is to help [my team] set goals not just for their work but for themselves, and to ensure that they have the resources and support needed to achieve them,” says Wendy. “For me, the most exciting part of teaching and of leading is helping people achieve their full potential and accomplish even more than they think they can.”

As founder of the Diversity Institute, Wendy is committed to advancing the values of equity, diversity and inclusion, in particular evidence-based organizational and social change. For Wendy, incorporating these values means more than just ensuring that everyone receives diversity training; people need to be encouraged to reflect on processes around allocating funds, how we provide our services and deciding which researchers to profile and promote. “With my staff, it’s been really important to ensure that the playing field is level – that we know who deserves recognition even when they do not seek it,” says Wendy. “Often the systemic barriers entrenched in ‘business as usual’ are the most difficult to expose and address. But we have to all use the tools within our sphere of influence to effect change.”

Over the years, Wendy has seen many things change at Ryerson, but says that one thing that hasn’t changed is the university’s core mission of meeting societal needs and being differentiated in its commitment to combining theory and practice. “Our legacy has really served us well and ironically has us in the position the other universities are now chasing.”

If you know of a great leader at Ryerson who is an example to others and deserves a little recognition, contact your Human Resources Management Consultant.