Rice joined the company from Drummond Madell in July 2009 and has been hailed as a “great asset”, largely due to his expertise in telecommunications and new media research which are both sector specialisms at the company, whose clients include the BBC, Orange and Virgin Media.

In a separate move, Jessica Francis has been promoted from senior research executive to research consultant after four years with the firm. She first joined as a graduate trainee in 2008 and focuses on financial services and event evaluation for clients such as Barclaycard and RBS.