Since January 2016 Jānis Kažociņš has been the National Security Adviser to the President of Latvia and Secretary of the National Security Council.

Born in the UK of Latvian parents, he grew up and was educated in England. A career of 30 years in the British Army included service in the British Army of the Rhine, Northern Ireland, Belize, and the Baltic States where he was the first UK Defense Attache to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania following renewed independence. He received an OBE on the first Gulf War operational list. In the Czech Republic he set up and commanded a British Military Training and Advisory Team for Central and Eastern Europe and in Slovakia he was UK Defense Adviser to the CHOD, his final appointment.

He retired early in August 2002 with the rank of brigadier in order to live permanently in Latvia. From 2003 to 2013 he was Director of the Constitution Protection Bureau (Latvia’s external intelligence service), a parliamentary appointment. During 2011 he was Chairman of NATO’s Civilian Intelligence Committee.