Editor’s note: We sat down with Amanda Finney to talk about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the unexpected path that led her to Microsoft. She tells this story in her own words.

Eighteen months ago, I was sitting in the Hillary Clinton campaign office, furiously making phone calls. When I wasn’t making calls, I was canvasing neighborhoods and talking to people in their homes about issues that they really cared about.

Speaking up and fighting for human rights is a key part of my background and was a topic of conversation at our dinner table while I was growing up. My uncle was a chief in the Cherokee nation, and I served as an ambassador of Cherokee culture as Miss Cherokee of South Carolina. My grandfather on the other side of my family was the first Black chief justice of South Carolina. I was always told that you have to know who you are and where you’ve been in order to know where you are going.

These are spaces I’ve been most familiar with and comfortable in—political circles, community activism.