Nistad (pictured) previously spent seven years as chief information officer at Orkla Foods Norway, the Norwegian branch of northern and central European consumer goods company Orkla Foods, where he had strategic and operational responsibility for the IT function and led workstreams on analytics and business intelligence.

Prior to Orkla Foods, Nistad was senior consultant at Bekk Consulting.

The chief information officer role is new at Norstat and will focus on the technical integration of acquisitions, and the implementation of unified operations, technology and systems across the company.

The appointment will see Siv Rønstad, chief technology officer at Norstat, change focus to product and technology development, as well as Norstatpanel. Nistad will report directly to Erling Eriksen, chief executive at Norstat.

Eriksen said: “Creating this new role reflects Norstat’s ambition to operate as one company across all our markets, and Olav’s track record leading digital transformation makes him ideally placed to deliver it.

“Clients should see long-term benefits as we implement enterprise technology and best practices to improve efficiency and project delivery, while freeing up resources to develop our panel and digital products with greater intensity.”

Nistad added: “I’m very happy to be joining Norstat at such an exciting point in its development.

“The company has built an impressive position in data collection across Europe and the Americas, and I look forward to working with the highly capable IT team and developers to integrate technology further, scale our infrastructure and ensure we have the right foundations to support the company’s growth ambitions.”