Following the results of the 2011 general election, which delivered an absolute majority to the PP in the Congress of Deputies, Mariano Rajoy was invested Prime Minister and formed a new cabinet.

On 27 October 2017, after Mariano Rajoy enforced the Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution on the Catalan government, dismissing regional premier Carles Puigdemont, Sáenz de Santamaría was entrusted with the responsibility for overseeing the functions of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

[16][17] On 18 October 2018 she was appointed member of the Council of State, the supreme consultative body for the Spanish Government,[18] assuming office on 8 November 2018.

[19] In March 2019, the incorporation of Sáenz de Santamaría to the Cuatrecasas law firm (both as associate and as member of the board of directors) was announced.

[20] Saenz de Santamaría, called by many media as "the most powerful woman in Spain since (the return of) democracy",[21][22][23][24][25][26] has been often considered to espouse a technocratic form of governance, without a clearly defined ideology.