Sean Elsbernd

Sean Elsbernd has over two decades of experience in San Francisco’s City Hall and currently serves as Chief of Staff to San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Elsbernd has been the Mayor’s Chief of Staff since she took office in July 2018.

Before working for Mayor Breed, Sean began his career in City Hall as a Legislative Aide to then-Supervisor Tony Hall in 2001.  Upon Gavin Newsom’s election to the Mayor’s Office in November 2003, Newsom hired Elsbernd to serve as his initial Liaison to the Board of Supervisors, representing the Mayor’s Office at all meetings of the Board of Supervisors.  In August of 2004, Mayor Newsom appointed Elsbernd to a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors.  Elsbernd was subsequently elected and re-elected to the Board by District 7 voters in 2004 and 2008, respectively.  Upon terming out as a member of the Board of Supervisors in 2012, United States Senator Dianne Feinstein appointed Elsbernd as her State Director, a position which Elsbernd held until he was appointed Mayor Breed’s Chief of Staff.

During his tenure on the Board of Supervisors, he focused on streamlining and restraining City expenditures and ensuring fiscal accountability for each tax dollar appropriated.  While working for Senator Feinstein, Elsbernd served as the Senator’s “eyes and ears” in the State while she was in Washington, D.C., and played a lead role in the Senator’s 2018 re-election campaign.

Before working in City Hall, Sean worked as a law clerk with Nielsen, Merksamer (co-alumni of Claremont McKenna College), Parinello, Mueller, & Naylor in 1999, with the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, and in the office of Congressman Tom Lantos, serving as a co-director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1995.

Sean received his BA from Claremont McKenna College in 1997 and graduated from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 2000. He subsequently was admitted to the State Bar of California on December 4, 2000. 

A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Sean Elsbernd, lives in the West of Twin Peaks neighborhood of San Francisco with his wife Jennifer, the Deputy City Administrator of the City and County of San Francisco, and their two children.  He runs marathons in his spare time