Christelle Ngnoumen is a behavioral scientist and researcher based in San Francisco. You can connect with her through LinkedIn or her website.

Tell us about yourself

Hello – I’m Christelle Ngnoumen! I am an applied behavioral scientist and researcher who designs digital experiences and services that help people make better decisions, and improve their wealth and health outcomes. I am currently AVP of Behavioral Science Research at Voya Financial where we are focused on helping people boost their savings and benefits utilization. Prior to Voya I led behavioral science at Headspace Health, a leading provider of meditation and mental health solutions. Prior to working in industry, I taught and researched in academia, where the bulk of my doctoral studies focused on designing mindfulness-based interventions to improve decision-making. I have always had a passion for making the benefits of practices like mindfulness more accessible to people, and I love being able to introduce mindfulness in money management to help people level up their finances and financial well-being.

What makes you interested in mindful work?

Mindfulness is applicable to so many areas of our lives. In a world where it can sometimes feel like everything is competing for our attention, and in which our minds time travel between reliving the past and anticipating the future, mindfulness can help us become more present, see things more clearly, and choose how to respond. Not only is there a continually growing body of literature that demonstrates its positive effects on our decision-making and physical and mental health, but it can also be a crucial component to our financial well-being.  Mindfulness and increasing awareness can help people save more and spend less by increasing their awareness around things like impulse shopping, noticing what they buy, and acknowledging the feelings that drive those purchases. Being mindful of financial behaviors and decisions in this way can help a person stick to a budget, better financially plan, and be less stressed. And perhaps what is most valuable about mindfulness is that it is accessible to anyone and can help so many people.

What do you do to unwind after a long day of work?

A lot of my work these days involves sitting at a desk for long hours. For this reason some of my favorite ways to unwind are through moving meditations, either in the form of cycling or running. The goal is to combine physical activity with mindfulness by focusing on the breath or physical sensations as I engage in different movements. Or I simply pay attention to different moments and states until I enter the next sh*t shift, which is a concept one of my favorite teachers uses to describe illuminating changes you discover when you push past fight-or-flight responses during physical activity. What’s more, in approaching my moving meditations this way there’s never been a “workout” I didn’t love.

Thanks so much Christelle for sharing your journey with us!