Johnson (pictured) was previously chief executive at The Harris Poll, and has prior experience as president at BAV Consulting, part of WPP, and chief strategist at BrandAsset Valuator.

Outward Intelligence was founded by Amir Kanpurwala, former chief product officer at The Harris Poll, Abhish Raghavan, previously head of custom research at The Harris Poll, and Brian Tatum, formerly deployments lead at Palantir.

The company focuses on combating data fraud through the use of AI, and is based in New York.

John Gerzema, appointed co-chief executive at The Harris Poll in 2017 alongside Johnson, has become the sole CEO at The Harris Poll since Johnson’s departure.

Kanpurwala said: “Speaking on behalf of the co-founders of Outward Intelligence, the appointment of Will Johnson as CEO is a critical next step in our evolution as a company.

“Will has emerged as one of the world’s foremost leaders in public opinion polling, and his wide-ranging experience in corporate leadership positions OI more strongly than ever before.”