Working with Michelle Obama: A chat with Chynna Clayton

143: Empathetic, strategic, and meticulous about the details, Chynna Clayton has built a career enabling some of the world’s most influential leaders to excel in high stress environments.

Chynna is the founder and CEO of Matriarch Made Development, a consulting firm that centers around helping companies and organizations develop high performing administrative teams, identify and address overall operating structure and event logistics inefficiencies and further cultivate assistant’s talents.

Named in honor of the four generations of maternal women who have paved the way for her to mature into the woman she has become today, Matriarch Made was founded on the principles that enabled Chynna to build a distinguished career in personal, government, and corporate environments.

Raised by a single mother in Miami, Florida, on the outskirts of Liberty City. Chynna studied Event Management and Political Science with a minor in Business at the University of Florida. A proud Florida gator, Chynna’s time at UF helped her to gain exposure to event management as a White House intern during the Obama administration. Upon graduation, Chynna spent years supporting the Obama’s advance logistical teams until leaving her administrative role at The Walt Disney Company to ultimately become the “body-woman” of former First Lady Michelle Obama. In this capacity, Chynna helped Mrs. Obama connect with communities around the world. She ensured every detail of Mrs. Obama’s personal and public facing events were executed flawlessly, directing teams who coordinated Mrs. Obama’s domestic and international engagements.

At the conclusion of the Obama administration, Chynna was retained by the personal office of Barack and Michelle Obama as their Director of Travel and Event Operations, where she continued to help manage the personal obligations of their family while continuing to oversee the coordination of Mrs. Obama’s engagements.

Now at Matriarch Made Development, Chynna helps leaders build core competencies such as but not limited to organization, teamwork, communication, problem solving, accountability and composure in administrative and executive teams. From executive training and coaching to equipping organizations with tools such as scheduling systems, templates, tactics, processes/procedures, events logistics guidance; Matriarch Made helps leading organizations build a systems approach to tackling the inefficiencies that stifle overall potential.

Chynna was most recently highlighted in Michelle Obama’s newly released book, “The Light We Carry.” She has written for O Magazine; been featured in Essence, the Miami Herald, the University of Florida Health and Human Performance Magazine, the Netflix Documentary “Becoming,” and the Michelle Obama Spotify Podcast. Chynna strives every day to be an inspiration for young girls, especially those who have experienced similar life challenges. Chynna resides in Washington, DC with her wife Katina Hoyles.

Links:

Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2FWphgr6AbA 

Chynna's Website: https://www.chynnaclayton.com/
Chynna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chynna-clayton-248b145b/

Diana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-brandl/
The Future Assistant Newsletter: https://the-socialista-projects.com/#newsletter

Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3qBSDjTfYOG2x6qos7dKkS
Podcast on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-future-assistant/id1493106661