Pacific Council member Alejandra Campoverdi is a passionate advocate for women’s health and empowerment, a commissioner for First 5 California, and a former White House aide to President Obama.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, she attended high school during the 1990s amidst the debate over Proposition 187, the LA riots, and the O.J. Simpson trial. It was a politically and racially-charged time that inspired her to consider her identity and her place in the city and the country, influencing her career in social justice across politics and media. Through these overlapping sectors, Ms. Campoverdi is committed to representing voices that often go unheard.

Prior to running for Congress in California in early 2017, Ms. Campoverdi was the founding managing editor of #EmergingUS at the Los Angeles Times, a digital platform that explored the emerging American identity. She previously served as senior advisor for innovation and communications strategy for Univision Network News. Currently, Ms. Campoverdi serves as senior advisor to Ariel Investments President Mellody Hobson.

Ms. Campoverdi owes her penchant for taking risks to the "immigrant spirit" of her family. As the first in her family to be born and raised in the United States, she often had no choice but to seek untraditional opportunities to break through, assert her own voice, and advocate on behalf of her community.

As part of an ongoing series about women’s leadership, Pacific Council Executive Director Jennifer Faust recently spoke with Ms. Campoverdi about running for political office and what she considers to be authentic leadership.

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Jennifer Faust: You ran for office last year—how was that experience? What did you learn from it?

Alejandra Campoverdi: There are few experiences in life where you are able to put everything on the line for what you believe in. Running for office is one of them, and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity. When a special election was called in my district in Los Angeles, Donald Trump had just been elected president and the effort to repeal Obamacare was in full swing. Health care access in particular is a critical and personal issue in my family and in my district. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment and I wanted to do everything in my power to do my part.

I learned many things from the experience, one of which is the importance of running like you’re unafraid to lose. In my case, our special election was only a few months long, and I was running against more than 20 other candidates so the road was never going to be easy. But that is all the more reason to stand strongly and boldly for the issues that affect people’s lives every single day, regardless of an election. To stop looking over your shoulder at polls and instead look into your community where all the answers lie.

It sounds like you’re saying to be authentic, and people will respond to that.

Being authentic is paramount. If you win a race while being inauthentic about who you are or what you stand for, that’s not a win for you or your community. Our voices—as women, people of color, young people—are not always represented at certain levels of influence. We have an obligation to speak the truth whenever we have the megaphone.

Early on, I took some time alone to consider why I was running. For me, this directly tied back to where I came from, the community I was raised in and what I believed in. There is no recipe for authenticity but what I will say is that it is important to do internal work with yourself on the front end so you can be clear and real. You can tell who has done the work and who hasn’t.

How can you tell?

Most people can recognize instinctually when someone is speaking in talking points versus speaking from the heart. It is what attracts us to certain leaders over others, in politics or otherwise. In many ways, you are electing a person’s character by entrusting them to make decisions on your behalf and to continue honoring that promise into the future.

How would you define your leadership style? Has it changed over time and with your different career experiences?

I’ve often taken an untraditional approach, which many times comes with risk, and I see this as a byproduct of my upbringing. I was raised by a single mom who emigrated from Mexico a few years before I was born so the immigrant spirit was very strong in our household when I was a child. I grew accustomed to feeling a sense of possibility laced with potential risk. I never had a safety net. I was forced to become comfortable with ambiguity, and I have benefited from that in my professional career. The most dynamic opportunities often inherently carry a lot of risk but they also lead to rewarding and transformational experiences. I have my mother and grandmother to thank for that.

Based on your experience working in media companies, how can media be more inclusive of diverse voices, especially those of women amidst the #MeToo movement? Who in particular is excelling in equity and diversity within the media?

There are fewer media gatekeepers now. Anyone can share their voice, tell their story, and influence the debate thanks to the accessibility of social media and digital platforms. This is an important moment in time, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of these movements are being led by untraditional, emerging voices. No one is going to tell your story better than you.

I’ve worked in different media organizations creating platforms dedicated to inclusivity and that has always been my focus—to pass the mic so that under or misrepresented voices have the opportunity to tell their own story authentically and with nuance. The way we generate empathy is to get up close and personal with people and experiences that are different from our own.

What advice would you give to women who are seeking to run for office for the first time?

My advice for women is to just do it! It’s simple, but as women we aren’t often asked to. When the seat in my district opened up, friends and colleagues called and encouraged me to run and that had a huge impact on me. It just takes one person to say: you can do this. Hopefully I can be that person for someone who is reading this.

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Get in touch with Alejandra if you’re interested in learning more about her work by emailing us at engage@pacificcouncil.org.

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The views and opinions expressed here are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.