Turner takes up his new role in mid-May. In an interview with Research, he explained that his departure coincided with the culmination of several initiatives that he was working on within ICM, as well as being offered the opportunity to progress his career.

He was hired from FreshMinds in September 2010 with an innovations remit – “both people-based and proposition-based”, he explained. Managing director Andrew Wiseman said Turner “allowed us to make some great strides in the areas of community and panel management” as well as feeding in to the development of mobile applications work, neuroscience initiatives and online journey tracking.

“James has added great value to our business and I’m sure he will continue to add great value wherever else he goes,” Wiseman said.

Although Turner won’t be directly replaced, Wiseman said the company was looking to recruit up to a dozen new employees – two-thirds of which, he said, will be net new positions.

David Reeves is a new addition to the firm, joining from Ipsos Mori as production director to oversee all telephone and online operations. His appointment is part of a reorganisation of the operations team, on which Turner worked with operations director Neil Sykes. As part of the changes, Vicky Heron has been promoted to associate director for data processing and Mona Blaute becomes associate director for production. Sykes, meanwhile, joins the ICM Group board of directors after more than a decade with the firm.

Wiseman says the reorganisation will “reinforce ICM’s reputation for delivering quality research fieldwork to clients”. Having only recently taken over as acting MD – after lower than expected sales at the firm led to the departure of ICM Group chairman Justin Sampson – Wiseman said he has a 100-day plan to go out and explain to clients “where we are going” and the investments that have been made in “new ways of collecting data and new ways of triangulating data”.

Success, he said, “will be tested on the results we get in the first quarter”.

“The mood across the business is upbeat,” Wiseman said. “We are looking forward to a new year.”