Els Van Beneden graduated in Commercial and Financial Sciences (1990) and in Maritime Sciences (1991). In 2011 she obtained a Bachelor in Family Sciences. She worked for the Flemish government for almost 20 years as a policy officer and cabinet employee for Waterways. After an autistic burnout and a long search, she received an autism diagnosis in 2015. Labeled autism, she was no longer given the professional opportunities and challenges by her employer as earlier in her career. She therefore decided to completely change course and became self-employed. She is also a daily director of LAVA-vzw. (reachable via info@lavavzw.be)