Simulin, who previously ran his own healthcare marketing consultancy and has also served as vice president for EMEA at Nielsen Bases, will be based at a new Affinnova office in Paris. The company already has offices in the UK and Switzerland, and is also opening one in Germany.

Simulin (pictured) will be responsible for attracting new clients and serving existing ones, including AB InBev, P&G and Walmart.

Affinnova produces a system for concept optimisation – guiding respondents through a series of dynamically generated sets of concepts, with their choices at each stage influencing which concepts are included in subsequent sets.

President and CEO Waleed Al-Atraqchi said: “The addition of Jerome to our already successful European team allows us to support a significantly larger client base and demonstrates Affinnova’s commitment to strategic growth in Europe, where business is up 50% year-over-year.”

In the US, the Massachusetts-based firm recently hired Jeffrey Henning, formerly of Vovici and Tamara Barber, formerly of Forrester. It said it will be making more hires at its European offices soon, including research directors and client services managers.