Evans took up his new role at the Cheltenham-based direct marketing and digital agency this week. Prior to that he spent six years at St Ives, most recently as managing director of its data marketing operations Occam, Amaze One and My Bench.

DMS chief executive Tony Gill, who is also chief executive of Mosaic Print Management in York, becomes executive chairman as a result. He said the appointment of Evans was “very much a statement of our ambition as an agency” and praised his wealth of experience.

“Our philosophy is to have the right expert in the right company, so I’m absolutely delighted with Neil’s appointment. He’s someone who really understands the sector, is full of energy and is a person with real leadership skills,” Gill said.

DMS specialises in the charity and not-for-profit sectors and works for a wide range of clients including the British Red Cross, Macmillan Cancer Support, Combat Stress and Cats Protection. The 56-staff firm has sales of circa £9m and produces a range of communications for clients, including mailings, integrated campaigns, and direct response TV advertisements.

Evans, who has also taken an equity stake in the business, said he was looking forward to the fresh challenge.

“Relationship marketing is about putting organisations and individuals closer together to generate value for both. How we use data is at the heart of that finely-tuned machine,” he said. “We are looking to grow our production capability and to grow the DMS business in the UK as well as its international footprint.”

Nick Pride, who was previously managing director at DMS, left the business to pursue other opportunities in February.

As a result of Evans’ departure St Ives said it had aligned its data marketing businesses – Amaze One, Occam and Response One – under the leadership of Damian Coverdale as CEO. Coverdale was previously managing director of Response One. The PLC has also brought together its digital businesses: Amaze, Realise and Branded3, under Tony Murphy, who was previously CEO of Realise.