He is joined by Ethnos co-founder Marie-Claude Gervais and David Seal, who was previously head of customer experience implementation for the Orange account at Everything Everywhere.

Ashford will support Quadrangle’s public sector business, Gervais will focus on driving the firm’s qualitative capabilities and expanding the public sector client portfolio, while Seal will lead the company’s new O2 account.

Director-level roles are a new management tier created to support the company’s development, Quadrangle said.

The research and strategy firm has also appointed former GfK Retail & Technology research director David Casarini as a senior research consultant and Krista Uellendahl, formerly operations manager at Intrepid, as senior project manager.

Quadrangle managing director Nick Baker said: “We are delighted to be joined by some of the finest talent in the industry, as well as bringing in a number of high quality people from outside the research industry who previously wouldn’t have looked to join a research business.”