The Riigikogu appointed long-serving state official Janar Holm as Auditor General on 7 March 2018. Two-thirds of the parliament voted in favour of his appointment: 64 MPs for and 10 MPs against, with 15 abstentions. The Auditor General took up his post on 9 April 2018 upon giving his oath before the Riigikogu.

Janar Holm was born in Kuressaare (then Kingissepa) on 17 August 1976. He graduated from Saaremaa Co-educational Gymnasium (majoring in chemistry and biology) in 1994 before obtaining a Bachelor’s degree cum laude in Private Law at the School of Law of the University of Tartu in 1998. He was awarded a Master’s degree (magister iuris) at the same university in 2005 for his defence of his graduation thesis, entitled ‘Ensuring educational law at the level of compulsory education and at subsequent levels of education’.

Thereafter Holm acted as the managing director of the Estonian Traders Association from 1997-1999 before joining the public service, taking up a post in the area of government of the Ministry of Education and Research, which he stayed with for 18 years. He served as a legal adviser in the ministry from 1999-2000, then as the deputy head of the ministry’s legal department from 2001-2004, while from 2004-2006 he was the director of the National Examinations and Qualifications Centre. From 2006-2007 he served as the ministry’s Deputy Secretary-General for General and Vocational Education and from 2007-2008 as the Deputy Secretary-General for Administration. Finally, he served as the ministry’s Secretary-General from 2008-2017.

In 2017 Holm moved from the Ministry of Education and Research to the Ministry of Social Affairs, where he took up the post of Deputy Secretary-General for Employment and was responsible for overseeing issues of employment and working life.

Holm has been a member of the supervisory boards of the Estonia National Opera, the Estonian Qualifications Authority and the Innove Foundation, the chairman of the supervisory board of AS Hoolekandeteenused and a member of the Council of Ethics of Officials. He has also been a member of the supervisory boards of the Tiger’s Leap Foundation and AHHAA Science Centre, the chairman of the supervisory boards of the Information Technology Foundation for Education and the National Archive, a member of the management board of the Estonian Shooting Sport Federation and a member of the body of advisers to the Estonian National Defence College.