MEET CHRISTINE MATTSSON
Hello and welcome! I’m Christine Mattsson, Personal Stylist & Senior Managing Partner with J.Hilburn. The clothes a man wears reflect on his personal style, and like it or not, a man’s appearance forms his own “brand.” That brand amounts to an outward appearance (and I’d argue, an inward feeling) of who they are. That’s really the gist of what I do; I’m here to fine-tune who men “are.” I can look at a man’s occupation and his lifestyle and find what represents him best. The men who are my clients are able to reach into their closets and feel confident about what they wear. I love helping them make these choices and hearing about the impact it has made on their lives.
MY BACKSTORY
I’ve lived in the Bay Area for twenty years and have a wonderful family, comprised of my husband, our two children and some feline friends. I love to snow ski…any mountain will work! We also enjoy escaping the urban excitement to our home in Anderson Springs, Lake County, where we garden, read, enjoy time with friends and are starting a vineyard. My deepest roots are in Sweden, where my father still resides and I spent my first five years. From the age of five, I was born and raised in Milwaukee. My salesman father was the best dressed man I’ve known, which helped form my fashion sense. I headed to Texas for college at Southern Methodist University (SMU) —home of many fashionable women, where I knew I would be wearing a dress or skirt and not jeans to class. Upon graduation with a business degree, I chose sales as the focus for learning what it takes to run a business. 18 months after graduation, I was recruited as the first woman into a sales training program at EDS. I sensed that knowing the high tech industry would be both exciting and rewarding. After 11 years in Dallas, I headed to San Francisco to work for Hyperion Software and several dot-com startups.
Certainly, selling the idea of new things is in our blood, as you’ll see. My son is a natural entrepreneur. At fourteen he began as a purveyor of desirable athletic shoes and now as a young adult runs the fabulously, successful, private shopping space known as the Showroom LA. He and his team style professional athletes in streetwear and all the latest trending shoes.
It took several years before my aesthetic sensibilities took over, but they did promoting a career shift. With my sales and business experience in tow, my interests shifted to launching my own home staging and design company in 2002—Nest Egg Staging. I successfully helped to sell hundreds of homes for eleven years and embraced my love for and my natural understanding of colors and design; and more importantly, what people liked. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would trade staging people’s homes to actually staging men’s lives.
Finding J.Hilburn
In 2010, my close childhood friend, Julie, from Boston called. She wanted to tell me of a company with which she was involved. I thought, “What is this business you are pedaling?” But she implored, “Just listen.” I listened. I was very intrigued, went home and did my research where I found J.Hilburn to be the real deal. What’s more, I learned that another childhood friend was also a part of our team we were in the midst of forming—all of us independent business owners, representing J.Hilburn. And now we’re supporting each other, quite literally across the nation, with over fifty Personal Stylists that I mentor and work with, myself alone! Together my team covers the San Francisco Bay Area and other markets like: Milwaukee, Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo, New York, and into Orange County, CA.
My Team
One thing I’m exceptionally adept at doing; I help people see how they can build a business for themselves. With J.Hilburn, I show them they can maintain their important family time on their terms, while making a good living, knowing they are giving back to the ones around them. Personal Stylists DO help people in their personal successes. I’ve personally seen some of my team members move from desperation into success. How great that is! Now at the end of the day, they have a life that is satisfying. That drives me. If I can leverage my experience, connecting people to help others succeed in their business (both our clients and our team members)—that is a wonderful feeling. I do this daily because I believe my life was meant to be shared.