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Chelsea Clinton on running for office: ‘I don’t know’

By
Heather Muse
Heather Muse
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By
Heather Muse
Heather Muse
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October 17, 2013, 2:10 PM ET

FORTUNE — Chelsea Clinton highlighted one difference between her and her father, former President Bill Clinton, when she spoke at Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women Summit on Thursday. Her dad knew he wanted to be President at the age of five and built his life around achieving his goal. Chelsea said her career path was much more fluid. “I wish I had had one galvanizing ambition that I could reverse-engineer my life toward,” she said.

Instead, the younger Clinton spent her twenties working at McKinsey and at hedge fund Avenue Capital, but found that she “didn’t want to grow up to be my boss.”

MORE: Complete coverage of the Most Powerful Women Summit

With an “amorphous ambition to make a difference,” Clinton continued her education — she’s currently working on a doctorate in international relations at Oxford — and joined the Clinton Foundation, where she is vice chairman. As the daughter of two politicians, Clinton often gets asked if she’ll run for office one day.

Her reply at the Most Powerful Women Summit was simple, yet candid: “I don’t know.”

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