When Labour elected a new Scottish leader in 2011, Kezia Dugdale managed Ken Macintosh’s campaign.
Tomorrow she will learn whether she has beaten her now rival to the top job.
But the 33-year-old, who is the favourite to win, insisted she was “certainly not squaring off against” him.
The former deputy leader told The Press and Journal she was prompted to run by a “terrible” opinion poll at the start of the summer which revealed 80% of under-35s in Scotland planned to vote for the SNP at next year’s Holyrood election.
“It really struck a chord with me,” she added.
“I’m in that generation so I think I’m uniquely placed to speak to them, to match their values and aspirations for the future.”
While out campaigning, the former Aberdeen University student said many people told her they did not know what Labour stood for.
“What you will see from me is a lot of first values, first principles stuff,” she added.
From 2006-07, Ms Dugdale was a public affairs officer at the National Union of Students before starting work as an office manager and political adviser to Labour peer and former MSP Lord Foulkes, also a former MP.
She was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2011.
Ms Dugdale, who was head girl at Harris Academy in Dundee, is backed by former leader Johann Lamont, acting leader Iain Gray and shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray.
In a recent interview she described her politics as not “wildly different” to those of Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing front-runner in the race to replace Ed Miliband.
But she previously warned his victory in the UK contest could reduce Labour to “carping on the sidelines” for years.