Pointing and Middleton join BPRI as client directors

Earlier in his career, Pointing worked as an auditor at Arthur Andersen.

Pointing said: "As someone who has always enjoyed talking to business people about the challenges they face, it is a delight to work in an environment where the main focus is on high end business audiences around the world.

"Given the credit crunch, the growth of China, greater globalisation, environmental pressures and the challenges in the US market at present, this is a uniquely exciting time to be engaging business people in research!"

Middleton will have both existing and new client relationship responsibilities.

He joins from YouGov where he directed projects for several financial organisations, professional bodies and PR agencies.

Previously Middleton worked at NFO (later part of TNS) and has also worked at MediaCom, Rank Group and BDRC.

Middleton said: "It's great to join a company where business-to-business research is a true specialism.

"I'm particularly excited about the opportunity to conduct research amongst the most hard to reach business audiences."

Separately, James Keeling joins BPRI as a research executive.

Keeling will be working with established teams and assisting on customer satisfaction tracker projects. He will be involved in POP, BPRI's quarterly Political Opinion Panel.