Oliver Janser began his career as a police officer in the German Federal Police in 1986 and served in various assignments (patrol officer; transportation police; investigator; communications officer) until 2001. He has more than 36 years experience in operational policing and international police development involving police reform, organized crime, and counter terrorism. He holds a Master of Science in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management from the University of Leicester.

His international career began as a civilian police officer with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo in 2001. After this, he served as a police expert for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for 10 years, where he worked on the OSCE Mission in Kosovo and oversaw the professional development of more 7,000 Kosovo Police Officers as the Chief of Operational Police Skills. He then served as the Senior Advisor to the Kosovo Center for Public Safety Education and Development. During this time, he mentored numerous senior police managers and senior members of the Government to instill police development and the reform process in a post-conflict environment.

Oliver then became the primary advisor to the Government of Tajikistan’s Minister of Internal Affairs as the OSCE’s Counter Terrorism and Police Advisor there. He was responsible for the design, development, and implementation of a 20-year police reform strategy and spent more than four years developing local and international capacities and guiding all international donors in the police-reform process for Tajikistan. His services to the police reform in Tajikistan were recognized by the Tajik Ministry of Internal Affairs with their highest medal, the Federal Cross of Merit.

After 10 years with the OSCE, Oliver joined the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the German Government’s development agency based in more than 130 countries. As one of the primary Senior Police Advisors to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he served as the only bilateral police advisor to enhance the organizational development of the African Union Police Component in contemporary police development and peacekeeping operations. He was instrumental in the design and implementation of the African Continental Police Strategic Support Group and developing police standards in continental AU policing. Furthermore, he was instrumental in the setup and development of AFRIPOL, which combats transnational organized crime throughout Africa; Oliver also works on the setup and development of the training management system within AFRIPOL.

From 2017 to 2021, he continued his work with GIZ as the Senior Police Advisor within the MYPOL project, a European Union initiative to transform Myanmar's police force at all levels. As the Head of the GIZ component of MYPOL, he oversaw the Human Resource and Training Management component, as well as the civil society and media component. He also facilitated extensive coordination among all donor and peer organizations to implement high quality, cross cutting activities.

Since May 2021, Oliver has been the Head of Project for Countering Serious Crime in the Western Balkans, a project funded by the German Ministry of Development and the European Union under the “Instrument of pre-accession – IPA 2019.” This project supports six western Balkan countries in combating organized crime and counter terrorism.