Sir John Eaton Holmes GCVO KBE CMG (born 29 April 1951) is a British former diplomat who is the current Chairman of the Electoral Commission.

He was brought up in Penwortham, a middle-class suburb of Preston, where he went to school at Crookings Lane Primary and was in the same class as Howard Mendel, a Natural History Museum entomologist.

He returned to London in 1987 as Assistant Head of the Soviet Department and between 1989 and 1991 he was seconded to Thomas De La Rue & Co, before moving to India as Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the High Commission in New Delhi.

From January 2007 to August 2010 he was Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Holmes was appointed CMG in 1997 in the Resignation Honours List of former Prime Minister John Major for his service as Principal Private Secretary.

[7] In 2004 Queen Elizabeth II promoted him to GCVO at the conclusion of her state visit to France to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale.