Cousland was working in the property arm of CACI, conducting market and site assessments and feasibility studies for retail and restaurant chains and shopping centres in Russia and eastern Europe. He had been with the company for three and a half years.

A spokesman for CACI paid tribute to the “amazing amount of effort” Cousland had put in to opening up the eastern European property market and said he would be sadly missed.

Prior to CACI he was a new business development director within the consumer insight division of Datamonitor’s Verdict Research, a retail analysis firm, and also had stints in account management at Business Monitor International and Euromonitor International.

Reports in the press say Cousland was due to marry in April and had a six-month old daughter.

He is thought to have arrived at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on a flight from Heathrow shortly before a suspected suicide bomber caused an explosion in the arrivals hall at 4.30pm local time. Thirty-five people were killed and more than 100 injured.