4xi Expands with Wellness In The Workplace

Welcome to 4xi's latest team member, Brittney Van Matre, her focus is to help clients create innovative work experience strategies with wellbeing at the core.

Brittney Van Matre is a work strategy and experience expert, adding to her talents, she is also a coach and emotional intelligence facilitator, helping individuals and teams unlock meaning, purpose, and connection in their work and life. She is available to offer support on a consulting basis for individual projects and ongoing expertise.

Introducing Brittney Van Matre

Brittney has moved into teaching, coaching, and independent strategic advisory work after 17 years of management experience, including nearly a decade at Nike in the consumer and employee experience space, most recently as the Director of Strategy and Business Operations for Nike Workplace Design. She is now sharing her expertise widely as companies look to reemerge in a post-Covid world and build holistic employee experience strategies with wellbeing at the core.

Prior to Nike, Brittney spent four years in management consulting at KPMG where she worked across a variety of industries leading engagement for clients such as Microsoft Online Services, US Department of Energy, Precision Castparts, Flir, and Washington Mutual Bank.

As the Director of Workplace Strategy and Experience at Nike, Brittney authored the Nike Workplace Experience (NWX) strategy for the Nike Americas region including Nike World Headquarters, Nike New York, Nike Los Angeles, and Converse locations touching over 25,000 employees. Brittney co-authored the Nike Workplace “Return to Home Turf” strategy covering the end-to-end Covid reemergence process, timelines, and strategy.

Brittney’s knowledge of experience and strategy comes from having spent nearly six years in both the CX and EX space at Nike, first in CX creating best-in-class digital and physical consumer experiences at retail using the principles of human-centered design. She worked with some of the world’s largest retail accounts including Dick’s Sporting Goods and Deichmann Group Germany. This eventually led to a role in Nike Employee Experience, leveraging the same ideation and innovation to create unforgettable employee experiences.

Beyond her corporate career ventures, Brittney has a strong entrepreneurial spirit that has led her to create both Lead Awake and Nature120 (forthcoming!). These projects have informed how Brittney focuses her work. She leads with innovation at the heart of all she does, injecting new ideas, arriving at creative solutions, and asking the right questions at the right time.

Alongside her professional career, Brittney is passionate about personal transformation. Drawing from personal experience and with deep gratitude to the teachers and experiences that have impacted her, she focuses on helping others bridge their inner and outer worlds finding wholeness in themselves and their work.

Brittney engages in 1:1 coaching as well as facilitating transformational team experiences. Her bespoke workshops focus on topics such as psychological safety, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, stress management, resilience, leadership, motivation, and flow.

Born and raised in the United States and having lived abroad in Europe for several years, she carries a worldwide cultural perspective, an adventurous spirit, and a deep commitment to expanding human freedom.

Brittney holds bachelor degrees in accounting and information systems from Washington State University. She is a certified meditation teacher (MTT300) and a certified facilitator with the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, born at Google. She holds an Ecopsychology graduate certificate with Pacifica Graduate Institute and is in the process of getting her master's degree in Jungian and Archetypal Depth Psychology, also with Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Beyond these formal pieces of training, Brittney has also completed two mindfulness-based stress reduction training sessions with the UMASS Center for Mindfulness, graduated from the Power of Awareness Meditation Training, and the Mindfulness Daily at Work training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, two of her favorite teachers.

Welcome on board Brittney, and here's to getting Up Close & Personal.

Q1: Where do you live?

BVM: Portland, Oregon

Q2: What was your journey to 4xi?

BVM: My journey to 4xi was serendipitous! I left Nike in June of 2021 to pursue my entrepreneurial ventures and ended up with Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, serving as an in-house strategic advisor helping craft a vision for their forthcoming for-profit arm. Following that engagement, I decided to focus full time on my own pursuits, one of which included work experience and strategy consulting through the lens of wellness and wellbeing. I began posting articles and ramping up my networking activities on LinkedIn, which led me to Simon. I breathed a breath of fresh air when I read his profile:

“I have had the opportunity to, and am passionate about making a difference, creating impact. I believe in the power of human potential.”

It seemed like a perfect fit. I reached out and the rest is history.

Q3: Why is wellness and the human experience at work so important and how can you make a difference?

BVM: Frankly, it’s a necessity. The Millennials alone, who make up the majority of today’s workforce, have lived through major advancements in technology, 9/11, a global pandemic, two economic recessions, political upheaval, racism, sexism, and now, war, all before the age of 40. These are enormously volatile times, physically, emotionally, psychologically, cognitively, and personally. The statistics have become alarming, and leaders must act. We spend such a significant amount of our lives at work, it must become a place of belonging, nurturance, healthy challenge, creativity, and wellness.

With my background in strategy and experience combined with my education in psychology and emotional intelligence, I am focused on helping companies build holistic, human-centered workplaces. This includes everything from physical environments rooted in serving diversity, purpose, and wellbeing, to digital connection hubs, to establishing programs and learning opportunities to build belonging and self-awareness, and emotional intelligence.

Q4: What are the most interesting innovations you see in the market today?

BVM: Advancements in digital mental health have been awesome to watch unfold. Big players like Modern Health, BetterUp, and Spring Health are doing a lot of change the landscape and narrative around mental health care and support, also at work. I am equally intrigued by smaller players such as Nirvana Health, Sesh, and MindFi competing for market share. Beyond mental health-specific platforms, there is a lot happening in the digital tools arena helping employees better manage stress, engage with one another, and prevent burnout. Platforms such as:

Culturly: automation of team mood check-ins and culture processes, supplemented with online/live events.
Yerbo: preventing burnout through employee check-ins and team dashboards to track morale.
ThinkLadder: Mental wellness focus using slack notifications and moderated chat groups
Café: YCombinator startup that offers ways for employees to schedule real-life interactions based on locations.

And lastly, Salesforce retreat center is the pinnacle expression of wellness in the physical form. So exciting to see this new wave of real estate investments in the experience space.

Q5: What was the most amazing wellness experience you’ve had?

BVM: My wellness regime is a multi-faceted approach. That is the think about true wellbeing, it is a verb, it is achieved over time and requires commitment and practice. Unfortunately, there are no wellness “quick fixes” out there.

Companies must also adopt the same mindset – this is a process, a journey. I try to nurture all aspects of my being, cognitively through therapy, reading, writing, learning; physically through exercise, yoga, and being outdoors in nature; socially and emotionally through connection with friends, family, and group experiences; and lastly, spiritually through meditation, rest, and creativity.

Q6: What are the top 3 pieces of advice you would offer to our readers with regards to improving their approach to wellness?

BVM: Number 1: Think holistically. As I said before, wellness is not a check-the-box exercise. It goes far beyond a standard total rewards package. Well-being touches all aspects of one’s inner and outer life. Number 2: Think innovatively. Stretch the boundaries, try new solutions, and take a fail-fast approach. Vet a list of options, find new startups in that space, and pilot partnerships with smaller subsets of your workplace population. We must begin to think as innovatively about wellness as we do about things like marketing and product design. Number 3: Do your research, listen to your employees. Do focus groups, talk individually, conduct regular surveys – there are so many ways to find out what your people need, want, and desire. Build your wellness initiatives around listening to your employees.

Q7: What is your favorite vacation destination and why?

BVM: I would have to say anywhere in the east – Bali, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, and Nepal have been some of my favorites. I am swept away by the food, lifestyle, and culture. I think I was from the east in a past life!

Q8: If you could change one thing, anything, what would it be?

BVM: Nothing. All events, good and bad, have been orchestrated for my best interests and ultimately, my growth.

Q9: What are your passions and why?

BVM: I have a growing passion for mental health and reconnecting humanity with nature. I believe most of the problems we are collectively experiencing stem from our disconnect with the more-than-human world. Growing our connection to our inner and outer nature is potentially the most powerful thing we can do at this time on the planet.

Thanks, Brittney, so nice to get to know you, and welcome to the 4xi family!

4xi: Our strength is in the power of our collective

To learn more about Brittney download her BIO, or you can contact her directly at

Brittney@4xiconsulting.com.

4xi Global Consulting & Solutions is a team of talented leaders from both the client-side and service provider side creating an impact in the Human Experience (HX) for people at work, in education, rest, and at leisure.

We believe in a people-first, experience-led philosophy, whether client, employee or guest – their experience is the fundamental foundation of success.

We work with corporations, service providers, and innovators:

Strategic Advisory
Global Amenities Strategy, Design & Operations
Human Experience: Customer (CX) & Employee (EX)
Training & Development
Explorers Innovation Directory: Gateway to Innovation
Market Research Reports & Benchmarking

4xi is proud to be Chair of WORKTECH Academy for North America and a member of its Leadership Advisory Board. 4xi is a Global Ambassador for WORKTECH Academy.

Inspiring a brighter future, together.