Brydon succeeds Tony Cowling, who retires from the board today, and will take up his post with immediate effect. Brydon is chairman of Smiths Group, the London Metal Exchange and is senior independent director of Scottish Power.
Brydon joins the company just a few months after David Lowden replaced Mike Kirkham as chief executive of TNS. Kirkham will remain with TNS until October, having spent 35 years with the group.
As new chairman, Brydon brings 20 years of experience with Barclays Group, during which he was chairman and chief executive of BZW Investment Management.
Brydon joined ASA Group in 1997 and is currently chairman of AXA Investment Managers. In the past five years, he has also been chairman of GE Healthcare's Amersham group and senior independent director of Allied Domecq.
Cowling said: "Donald Brydon has had a distinguished career and brings to TNS a wealth of experience from both the commercial and financial sectors. TNS has grown significantly over the past few years and, as a global company, will benefit from having a chairman with broad business experience, who has led sizeable international companies."
The appointment comes as TNS issues its trading update ahead of its 2005 full-year results on March 6. It expects demand for syndicated services to grow steadily with the consumer sector continuing to be under pressure.
The group's revenue in Europe showed an improvement in performance in the second half of the year and growing well against a weak market environment. Net debt at December 31 is expected to be around 拢300m.
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