Elsa Mein has been working for the German Ministry of the Interior and Community for several years where she is responsible for European and international data protection law.

Before being elected as Chair in November 2022, she was a Bureau Member of the Consultative Committee of Convention 108 and the German representative in the Consultative Committee of Convention 108. In 2020, she was Co-Chair of the Working Party on Data Protection during the German EU - Council Presidency where she continues to be a member of the German delegation. In 2022, she was on a short-term secondment to the European Commission, DG Justice and Consumers, International data flows and protection unit.

Prior to her work in the German Government, she has worked at a German law firm in the field of data protection, and worked and taught at Freie Universität Berlin in the field of constitutional law and international public law as a research assistant. She studied law in Hamburg and Paris.