Elliot E. Maxwell advises public and private sector clients on strategic issues involving the intersection of business, technology, and public policy in the Internet, e-commerce, healthcare, and higher education domains. He is a member of the Board on Research Data and Information of the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council, a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Fellow of the International University of Japan, a Trustee Emeritus of Brown University, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Salve Regina University. He has served as a Fellow of the Communications Program at Johns Hopkins University, and as a Distinguished Research Fellow at the eBusiness Research Center of the Pennsylvania State University. He worked closely with the Committee for Economic Development on a series of reports on the digital economy, and with MIT and EPCglobal/GS1 on policy issues surrounding the implementation of the Electronic Product Code version of radio-frequency identification (RFID). He serves as an expert advisor to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, and has consulted with—among others—the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the William and Flora Hewlett and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundations.

From 1998 until 2001, Maxwell served as Special Advisor for the Digital Economy to U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley and U. S. Secretary of Commerce Norm Mineta. In this position he was the principal advisor to the Secretary on the Internet and e-commerce. He coordinated the Commerce Department's efforts to establish a legal framework for electronic commerce, ensure privacy, protect intellectual property, increase Internet security, encourage broadband deployment, expand Internet participation, and analyze the impact of electronic commerce on all aspects of the economy. He was deeply involved in the development of federal e-government activities and was a founding member of the Federal Interagency Working Group on Electronic Commerce.

After leaving the federal government, he was Senior Fellow for the Digital Economy and Director of the Internet Policy Project for the Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society Program. The Communications and Society Program focuses on the impact of communications and information technologies on democratic institutions, the economy, individual behavior, and community life.

Previously, Maxwell worked for a number of years as a consultant and as Assistant Vice President for Corporate Strategy of Pacific Telesis Group where he combined business, technology, and public policy planning. He served at the Federal Communications Commission as Special Assistant to the Chairman, Deputy Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy, and Deputy Chief of the Office of Science and Technology. Maxwell also worked for the U.S. Senate as Senior Counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities.

Maxwell went to Brown, where he co-authored, with Ira Magaziner, the report which led to the introduction of the “New Curriculum,” and Yale Law School, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Law Journal and authored an analysis suggesting that the CIA’s then completely secret budget was unconstitutional.

He has written and spoken widely on issues involving the Internet, electronic commerce, telecommunications, and technology policy. His most recent work, "The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?," was issued by the Committee for Economic Development (CED), and was cited by the Minister of Science and Technology of the United Kingdom in announcing a new British policy on access to taxpayer-funded research. The predecessors of that work, "Harnessing Openness to Improve Research, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education," "Harnessing Openness to Transform American Health Care," "Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of Openness," and "Promoting Innovation and Economic Growth: The Special Problem of Digital Intellectual Property" were also published by CED. The RFID Journal published his views on "Rethinking Privacy," and he has addressed the privacy implications of the "Internet of Things" at the European Privacy Summit of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

In 2005, Maxwell presented "Some Reflections on the Future: Dipping a Toe in the Datastream" to the OECD in Paris. That same year, the Economic Policy Institute published his report, "A New Future for Telecommunications Policy: Learning from Past Mistakes." His study of Internet Governance “Rethinking Boundaries in Cyberspace,” written with Erez Kalir, was published by the Aspen Institute in 2002.

Maxwell holds a B.A. with High Honors from Brown University, a J.D. from Yale Law School where he served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Law Journal. He holds a CIPP/US from the International Association of Privacy Professionals.