Petersen (pictured) was previously senior vice president of Nielsen Mobile and was formerly on the senior management team at syndicated market research provider Telephia – which was acquired by Nielsen in 2007.

Before his time at Telephia, Petersen held a number of marketing and analytics roles with companies in the telecoms and financial services industries.

Sense said that the appointment of a new CEO “will significantly enhance the company’s progress in building high-quality information products from large-scale mobile location sources”.

Petersen said: “There is an enormous opportunity in unlocking the value in location data, and it can be done in ways that are very safe from a consumer privacy perspective. Sense Networks is uniquely qualified to do this based on the analytic technology we’ve developed and our position in the marketplace. I’m very excited about working with the rest of the Sense team to collaborate with our mobile partners and customer base to execute on these opportunities.”

Sense uses mobile location data to help clients understand consumer behaviour. The firm’s Macrosense platform allows companies to group customers into marketing segments based on their actual behaviour, and companies can also measure the effects of marketing campaigns through the platform.