From March 2013 to July 2017, Schenk worked as an editorial assistant at the Philosophy Magazine[de] before becoming personal assistant to Altenburg's mayor Michael Wolf[de] (SPD) in October 2017. After Wolf's term ended, she became city manager in the economic development department of the city of Altenburg in August 2018.[citation needed]
As a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Schenk was elected to the Leipzigcity council in 2014, where she remained until she left the city in early 2018. From 2014 to 2016 she was state chairwoman of the Young Socialists in the SPD in Saxony, and from 2015 to 2018 she was a member of the SPD state executive committee in Saxony. After moving to Altenburg in Thuringia, she ran for mayor of the city in April 2018, but only came third with 20.4 percent of the vote.[1] From 2018 to 2022 she was district chairwoman of the SPD in Altenburger Land. There she was elected to the district council in 2019 and took over the chairmanship of the joint parliamentary group of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens until 2022.[citation needed]
In the course of the formation of the second Ramelow cabinet, Schenk was appointed State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior and Local Government[de] by Minister Georg Maier at the beginning of March 2020. She succeeded Uwe Höhn[de], who had retired, and took over responsibility for local government. Since 2022, she has been chairwoman of the SPD district association in Gotha and deputy chairwoman of the SPD Thuringia[de]. In the 2024 Thuringian state election, Schenk ran as a direct candidate in the Sömmerda I/Gotha III constituency and in 6th place on the SPD state list and received a mandate via the state list, which she accepted on 13 September 2024.[2] She resigned from her post as State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior on the same day, as in Thuringia state secretaries are not allowed to be members of the state parliament at the same time.[3][4]
