Elena Poptodorova joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1975 as a high-level interpreter for the Bulgarian Government.

She served from 3rd secretary through minister-counselor in the Secretariat, the State Protocol, the Cabinet of the Minister and the UN and Disarmament Directorates through 1990, when she was elected to the national legislature.

From 1987 to 1990 she was minister-counselor at the Bulgarian embassy in Rome and Bulgaria's Consul General to the Republic of San Marino.

She served on the committees on foreign policy, national security, radio and TV, human rights, agriculture.

In September 2016, she is appointed as head of the Central European office of AJC - a position she stepped down from on 1 March 2017 for "personal reasons".

[4] On 28 February 2017, Poptodorova was briefly detained at the airport in Warsaw, allegedly for theft of cosmetics – a story that was spread by 90 Russian news outlets,[5][6] some of which were then quoted in Bulgarian media.