Stefan Gehrold was born in 1965 in Freiburg, Germany. He studied law in Passau, Porto and Freiburg prior to his doctorate in Münster. From 1996 to 1999 he worked as a lawyer for labour law at Enneking & Partner in Damme and Berding & Partner in Dinklage. Over the years, he has served as the head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) offices in Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Prior to serving as the head of the KAS office in Senegal, he was responsible for accountancy and legal affairs at the Löwenbäcker GmbH in Leipzig. Gehrold was the Director of the European Office of the KAS in Brussels from 2011 to 2017. Before he joined the European Parliament in September 2018, he ran the Hermann-Ehlers Educational Institute of the KAS in Oldenburg. He is fluent in German, English, French, Dutch, and Croatian.