Chelsea Matthews is a brand builder and creative director known for blending intuition with strategy at Tux Creative House. Her work centers on honest storytelling, meaningful collaboration, and creating space for new voices—especially women founders and creative communities.

Here, Chelsea shares her perspective on creative leadership, building brands with heart, and what it means to create space for possibility, both at work and at home.

(L) Chelsea Matthews (R) Chelsea is a partner of Highly Likely, an LA-area restaurant with three locations at West Adams, Highland Park, and in Ojai, California.

You've described your work as being rooted in curiosity, purpose, and visual language. Can you trace back to a moment when the visual world first felt like a language you wanted to speak?

I spent hours as a kid cutting up magazines and rearranging my room—posters, colors, textures. It was my first way of making sense of the world, almost like building little stories out of images. That instinct never really left; it just evolved into branding and content—finding resonance through form, space, and visual texture, and weaving them into something that speaks its own language.

You've moved between launching your own studio, forging brand identities, and partnering with a larger creative house. How has your relationship to scale evolved? And how do you maintain the soul in scaling?

Scale is energizing, but it comes with friction. I love small, agile businesses where decisions happen quickly and there’s a feeling of weightlessness. What I’ve learned to love even more, though, is bringing that same energy into larger entities—reminding people not to overthink what doesn’t need to be, and to move fast and fall hard. Because ultimately, brand is behavior. No matter the size, it’s about the community you build and the dialogue you cultivate—inside your culture and out in the world.

As someone who supports and mentors women founders, how would you describe inclusive creative leadership in action?

Inclusive creative leadership, to me, means creating space for others to feel genuinely invested in the outcome. I try to bring my team into decision-making as much as possible—when people are part of the process, they move with more clarity and care. I’m also big on expressive gratitude. It costs nothing to tell someone they did something great, and it goes such a long way in how people show up. And finally, vulnerability has to start at the top. When leaders are open and human, it gives everyone else permission to be, too.

Are there any myths about women founders you wish you could rewrite?

That we lean risk averse—or at least more so than men. There are certainly narratives out there that can deter us from taking some of the bigger swings (like ease in raising capital, for example). Yes, broad studies show women often behave more cautiously in financial decisions, but what those studies don’t capture is the context in which risk happens. I think we take different kinds of risks, against a different set of life’s juggles.

What's the most grounding advice you'd offer to women ready to begin something of their own?

Start before you feel ready. There’s a false comfort in waiting for the “perfect” moment, partner, or plan—but most of the magic happens in motion. Build your confidence through small wins, surround yourself with people who’ve done it before, and stay close to your why.

Photographs by Pauline Chatelan of Camilla Marcus, Carly Maltzman, and Chelsea Matthews (L) and Chelsea with Randi Molofsky at a west~bourne donabe dinner.

In your personal life, you've spoken about balancing slow weekends over constant hustle. In your current chapter, how do you create space for reflection and reset?

I really do live for a slow weekend! Weeks are pretty go, go, go—even if it’s just with all the Zooms, deadlines, and after-school activities for my kids. So when it comes to the weekend, I really just want to cook, host, garden, and exercise. I’m quite a homebody. If there’s a day each weekend where I never get around to putting on makeup, I’m a happy girl. I just don’t say yes to everything—I’ve gotten to the point where I really know myself, and I don’t overcommit because I hate canceling.

Looking ahead, what's a cultural shift—emerging or going unnoticed—that you believe creatives and brands should be paying attention to now?

There’s a fascinating cultural undercurrent right now—a collective rejection of extreme self-optimization. You can see it in small rebellions everywhere: the nostalgic comeback of Diet Coke and cigarettes (excuse the reference in this beautiful Westbourne space!), the candid conversations around plastic surgery, or even Camila’s openness about the myth of work-life balance. We’re slowly uncoiling from the idea of wellness and physical perfection as the ultimate goal. Creative culture has been playing in that tension for a while, but I think brands have only just begun to lean into it—and there’s so much room there.

Are there certain rituals or habits that help you lead with both clarity and compassion in your work?

I really try to over-communicate with my team as much as possible. I’ve found that candor and clarity go a long way in helping your team feel involved, and just talking to them on their level. I also try to be incredibly organized in my work to create minimal chaos in a very chaotic industry (agency work can get a little wild sometimes). And I never ask someone to do something I wouldn’t do myself.

What's feeding you—creative nourishment, rituals, or otherwise—right now?

Some little things that have filled my cup lately:

- Midday walks: I have teams and clients on both coasts, so I’m on Zoom a lot and often start working pretty early. I’ve gotten into a new habit of breaking away from my desk midday for a quick walk—just 20 minutes, but it’s been a good energy shift.

- Focus time for creative testing, especially in AI: I hold time each week to experiment with creative tools and make them more intuitive for my taste and needs, but also just to see how far I can push them. I get to do this within projects as well, but it’s nice to carve out quieter days—like Fridays—for more art-driven work.

- Mini meditation/breathwork in the mornings: I love the Open app and have started doing their short 5-8 minute sessions in the morning when the house is still quiet and I’m having coffee. It feels a little more attainable for me than longer sprints midweek.

For more on Chelsea's work, find her on Instagram @chelseamatthews, and at Tux Creative House.