Karen Finney is of mixed ethnicity. Her father is an African American and her mother was a distant relative of Robert E. Lee. Due to her mixed ethnicity, she was not allowed into her Grandfather’s house in North Carolina and he relented later on and she got to meet her grandfather, when she was 16 years old. Due to her being subjected to this kind of racial discrimination, she is a strong advocate on racial indiscrimination and also supports the gay community.

Profession

Karen Finney has been with MSNBC since the year 2009. She has over 16 years of experience in political campaigns as political consultant and analyst. She has worked with many administrations from President Bill Clinton’s administration to the Democratic National Committee where she helped the communications and media strategy department and was involved in the 50 State Strategy put forward by Howard Dean for the Democratic Party. She also worked as Deputy Press Secretary to First Lady Hillary Clinton in the Clinton Administration. She hosts the show ‘Disrupt with Karen Finney’ at MSNBC on weekends between 4pm and 5pm. She served as Press Secretary in Hillary Clinton’s bid for Senate post in 2000, and was the Director of Communications during the 2004 presidential campaign for Elizabeth Edwards. She has also appeared regularly on CNN and Fox News besides working at MSNBC.

Other Interests

Karen is also involved in several public sector and corporate undertakings including the Scholastic Inc. and the Board of Education in New York City. She is the Chief of Staff for the President and CEO of Scholastic Inc. She also held the post of Director of Business Development and Strategy at Scholastic Inc. She served as the chief spokesperson and Director of Communications during the critical situation in the wake of September 11 attacks at the Board of Education in New York City. Other boards that she is a member include the Women’s Leadership Forum Network in New York. She is also a member of the Young Leaders program at the French American Foundation.

Karen Finney was involved in a controversy when she hung up on Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talker on a radio show interview. Her comment that Alger Hiss was a communist triggered a volley of words and Finney was not able to keep up with the conversation and hung up abruptly.