Pabaru will be based in Hong Kong and run Nielsen Consumer Research teams in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
He will report to Mitch Barns, who is president of the Nielsen Company in Greater China, as well as Dave Parma, president of global consumer research.
Pabaru has 14 years' experience in market research and was with rival firm TNS in Hong Kong before joining Nielsen.
His brief is to help the consumer research team bring greater clarity on clients' markets and provide clients with deeper understanding of their consumers along with actionable insights to answer their business needs.