TheBridge profile: Amanda Byrd

Name: Amanda Byrd

Current city: Washington, DC

Current job: Senior Director of Communications at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation

Past job: Manager for Public Affairs at the Economic Innovation Group; Director at 463 Communications

Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? Crimson Diner just opened up across the street in the new Pod hotel, and it has a great coffee bar menu. Best of all, no one has discovered it yet (until now, oops).

Q. Describe one way how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your new job.  There can, at times, be a vast cultural divide between Washington and Silicon Valley. In my previous role, one of the most valuable things I took with me was the ability to translate those two worlds for each other. Our goals are often the same, but we traditionally take different paths, so finding a way to act as that bridge has been invaluable.

Q. Job advice in three words? Trust your team

Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between politics and tech? At EIG, our founder and many other advisors are leaders in Silicon Valley, but they are also interested in what's happening in the country beyond technology. At a time when both research and public sentiment was starting to tell us that something new and different was happening in our economy, EIG was created to apply Silicon Valley ingenuity to find new ways to address the challenges facing our country. I've tried to use that approach to change the way we communicate and tell the stories about our economic well-being throughout the country.

Q. If you had to live in another city, which would it be?  Pittsburgh. It's just beginning to gain recognition for being the vibrant, innovative, culturally rich city that it has always been.

Q. What is your favorite restaurant? I make weekly visits to Indigo. It's my favorite casual Indian food in DC, and the atmosphere is the best for meeting new people and relaxing.