Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served as the 67th United States Secretary of State, under President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2013, overseeing the department that conducted the Foreign policy of Barack Obama. She was preceded in office by Condoleezza Rice, and succeeded by John Kerry. She is also the only former First Lady of the United States to become a member of the United States Cabinet. Within a week after the November 4, 2008, presidential election, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed over telephone the possibility of her serving as U.S. Secretary of State in his
Secretary of state Terras. Before the Soviet re-occupation in 1944, the State Secretary went into exile until the position came back to Estonia in 1992. A state secretary (), is the highest official below each minister. Ministers, who lead ministries (government departments), comprise the Finnish Government. Each state secretary is appointed for the term of the minister and is responsible to the minister. This is a new arrangement; during the introduction of this model, a secretary was called "political state secretary" (). In contrast, previously only two ministries, Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs, used to have state secretaries, who were permanently appointed.