Plumb, who also accompanied Cameron’s delegation on a trade visit to India this summer, is one of sixteen new faces joining the list of 32 business ambassadors tasked with promoting the UK in overseas markets and helping British companies, particularly SMEs, to exploit business opportunities.

The business ambassadors network, set up by the previous government in 2008, also includes Sir John Sorrell of the Sorrell Foundation, Lord Digby Jones of Triumph and HSBC, and Barclays Group chairman Marcus Agius. Others to have been added to the list by the new government include Tesco chairman David Reid and Tamara Mellon, co-founder of designer shoe firm Jimmy Choo.

Plumb, who co-founded FreshMinds with Charlie Osmond in 2000, told Research today: “We’ve been a fast growing SME and we want to promote the UK as a place where those sorts of businesses thrive.” UK Trade & Investment, the government department that runs the programme, is also “very interested in the creative industries”, she said, “and market research forms a part of the vibrant creativity that there is in the UK. I hope to draw on my experience of starting and running a business and hope that that promotes the UK as a place that people might choose to inwardly invest or do business with.”

Announcing the new ambassadors on his visit to China, Cameron said they will be “at the forefront” of the government’s efforts to promote international trade.

Sir Andrew Cahn, chief executive of UK Trade & Investment, said that since the network was established two years ago, business ambassadors had been “instrumental in securing many inward investment projects and have burnished the UK’s business reportation overseas”.

FreshMinds’ research business turned over £3.76m in 2009. The company also has a recruitment division, FreshMinds Talent, and an online communities business, FreshNetworks.