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This article was written by Ty Burke with contributions from Prof. Laurette Dubé, Prof. Paul Yachnin, and Eric Dicaire.
On January 21, 2025, experts from diverse disciplines and sectors gathered at the Desautels Faculty of Management for “Reimagining Shakespeare, Remaking Modern World Systems,” an event that explored how Shakespeare might advise contemporary leaders if he were alive today.
The event featured several expert panellists and special guests, from Deans to Senators to leaders in performing arts, healthcare, technology, economics, and more. Together they sought new pathways to address challenges facing today’s leaders. Each brought valuable experiences and perspectives that took lessons from Shakespeare’s work and applied them to real-world challenges.
Why Shakespeare?
During the first half of the event’s proceedings, attendees learned from Shakespeare how they might find meaning in a world built around money. Indeed, Shakespeare was much more than a playwright; he was an entrepreneur and one of the inventors of the modern entertainment industry.
“Shakespeare made a lot of money,” said Paul Yachnin, Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies in McGill’s Department of English. “Disney, Amazon—all of that—they are descended from what Shakespeare made in London in the 16th century.”
Parallel to his material success, Shakespeare was also a great purveyor of meaning. Shakespeare, Yachnin argued, was a kind of social entrepreneur. Not only did he make money for himself and for the members of his company, but he also made meaning for the thousands of ordinary people who paid to see the plays – stories that contained themes of love, betrayal, power, and corruption.
Antoni Cimolino, Shakespearean actor and Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, reinforced this point in his keynote speech.
“Shakespeare shows us situations where characters realize the emptiness of power and wealth,” he said. “And through the pain of loss finally understand where true meaning lies.”
In this way, Shakespeare combined money and meaning-making. Not only was he a huge financial success, but he used his success to convey truth about the human experience and critique the blind pursuit of money and power.
For the actor, playwright, and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald, Shakespeare’s marriage of money and meaning is an admirable one.
“Shakespeare took old stories and made them flower and blossom and glow with something infinite,” said MacDonald, a panellist at the event. She is also the Richler Artist in Residence at the Department of English at McGill University.
“And he made an excellent living. That is not a contradiction. Our twentieth-century hangover of viewing money and art as in binary opposition is a form of snobbery. It’s also a misunderstanding of history and what artists do.”
But Shakespeare’s approach doesn’t just yield lessons for artists like Cimolino or MacDonald. It holds lessons for businesspeople and policymakers too.
“After three hundred years of industrial revolution, money has become much of the driver of what we do,” said Laurette Dubé, Professor Emerita of Marketing and co-chair for the event.
“We need to ask to what extent can we integrate making meaning not only into our lifestyle, but also into the businesses and other human-made systems we have been putting together for the past three centuries since the first industrial revolution.”
Applying Shakespeare’s lessons
In the second half of the event, distinguished speakers and panellists explored how the lessons of Shakespeare – a man whose artistic and entrepreneurial work helped create the modern world – can open pathways towards the convergence of money-making and meaning-making and the humanization of modern world systems.
Through conversations on finance, media, technology, health, education, and politics, panellists engaged in solutions-oriented discussions that are both timeless and timely. They addressed issues that are as relevant today as they were when Shakespeare opened the Globe Theatre in 1599.
For example, Senator Julie Miville-Dechênes briefed the audience on the possibilities and challenges faced by Bill S-285: the 21st Century Business Act. If passed, the bill would require that, in addition to being profitable, businesses benefit wider society and the environment.
The Senator’s speech served as a springboard for the ensuing conversations, where speakers charted an interdisciplinary roadmap for action for the modern world, with lessons from Shakespeare woven throughout.
For instance, Mark Daley, Chief Digital Information Officer at Western University, reflected on how Henry V – the subject of Shakespeare’s play aptly titled Henry V – crossed class lines to unify disparate groups to win the Battle of Agincourt. For Daley, this was a metaphor for AI’s potential to democratize expertise, enabling anyone (villager or executive) to tackle major challenges, potentially reshaping modern power structures.
As the world’s hierarchies are in flux, Shakespeare reminds us that the convergence of money and meaning-making can and must be strengthened by diverse people who are willing and able to play creatively and changefully with the systems that rule our world.
“Reimaging Shakespeare, Remaking Modern World Systems” was an event organized by McGill Delve in collaboration with the Stratford Festival, the McGill University Department of English, and the McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics.
A special thank you to all the panellists and speakers who joined us for this event:
Antoni Cimolino
Artistic Director, Stratford Festival
Laurette Dubé
Emerita Professor and Distinguished McGill Chair of Consumer and Lifestyle Psychology and Marketing; Founding Chair and Scientific Director, McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics.
Paul Yachnin
Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Department of English at McGill University
Ann-Marie MacDonald
Novelist, Playwright, Actor
Richler Artist in Residence, Department of English at McGill University
Frédéric Samama
Head of Strategic Development, Sustainable1, S&P Global
Hon. André Pratte
Expert Panelist, Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation
Former Senator, Senate of Canada
Julie Miville-Dechêne
Senator, Senate of Canada
Scott Henderson
Media and Tech. Investor
Board Member, Tangerine and SAGE publishing
Raghu Machiraju
Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Computer Science and Engineering and Pathology at Ohio State University.
Nick Drager
Adjunct Professor, McGill University and University of Ottawa
Mark Daley
Chief Digital Information Officer, Western University
Shawn Brown
Senior Director of Engineering, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise
Podcast: Shakespeare didn’t want to be a thought leader, with Antoni Cimolino
We interviewed Antoni Cimolino, Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, during his visit to McGill University. He and Saku Mantere, McGill Delve’s editor-in-chief, unpack Shakespeare’s many lessons in leadership. Listen.
