I am so saddened by the loss of Madeleine Albright. In 1993, she was appointed by President Clinton to represent the United States at the United Nations and in 1997, she became the first woman to serve as US Secretary of State, making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of American government at the time. Madeleine Albright was a brilliant, funny woman who once told me that “far from being a ‘soft’ issue,” women's issues are often the very hardest ones, dealing directly with life and death.

I had the pleasure to interview Madeleine Albright at the very first TEDWomen in 2010. In a frank and funny Q&A, she talked bluntly with me about politics and diplomacy, and made the case for her belief that women's issues deserve a place at the center of foreign policy. After leaving office as U.S. Secretary of State in 2001, Albright continued her distinguished career in foreign affairs as a businesswoman, political adviser and professor.

She wrote many books and I would recommend her most recent, “Fascism: A Warning,” which is a personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world.