Kantar has recently restructured its data analytics practice, with Gonzalo Fuentes leading the practice. A spokesperson for the company said Souda’s role would not be directly replaced and was being covered by the team.

Souda is currently in the US. He said: “I am grateful to everyone at Kantar for providing me an opportunity and support to create a department which I feel did some of the finest work in the field of data science; a testament to it are several industry awards we won. I am also thankful to several of my clients who trusted my new methods and techniques.”

On working as a consultant, he added: “With growing amounts of data (structured and more importantly disjoint unstructured), there is a need for a different kind of analytical thinking to make sense of it. I believe that there is a scarcity of people with such experience –that’s where my plan is to come in and help clients and agencies.”

Souda joined Kantar in India in 2010 as a consultant in advanced analytics and moved to the director of data science role in the UK two years later.

He was a finalist for the MRS Research Live Newcomer of the Year award in 2014.