Margaret Shear

Hands-on product design leader with an entrepreneurial drive. NYC-based. 20+ years in user experience, 12+ years leading teams, 3x founding designer.

Most recently, I was VP of Design at Modern Life, an AI-enabled life insurance brokerage supercharging the sales journey for financial advisors and their clients. Previously, Head of Design at Indify, a marketplace for emerging musical artists, and Design Director at Condé Nast, where I led the design and launch of paywalls for Vanity Fair and WIRED and laid the groundwork for a shared design system across brands.

Between full-time roles, I built and ran an independent consultancy for over a decade, growing from hybrid designer and front-end engineer to embedded team lead to strategic advisor. Partnered with studios including frog, Doberman, Smart Design, R/GA, Hot Studio, and Adaptive Path, and clients including ASICS, Atlas Obscura, Flickr, Harvard Business Review, Nike, OpenTable, TIAA, Walmart, and Zappos.

I started my career as the founding designer and front-end engineer at PLOS, a non-profit that went on to revolutionize open-access scientific publishing.

In my spare time, I've taught Service Design at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) and guest lectured at graduate and undergraduate programs.

I graduated from Stanford University with BA Science, Technology & Society and BA in Studio Art.