Mr Roberts has almost 20 years' experience as a veterinary surgeon including pig herd health work in South Africa and the UK, and has presented a number of scientific papers to international pig congresses over the past 15 years.

David Roberts, who has been appointed as a veterinary relations manager for Pfizer Animal Health

Freddie French, who has been appointed as a key account manager for Pfizer Animal Health

After beginning a career in mechanical engineering, he qualified as a veterinary surgeon at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and spent six years there as a senior lecturer in pig herd health. Then from 1995 to 2002 he undertook farm animal and also equine work with veterinary hospitals and studs in South Africa. He served as chairman of South African Pig Veterinary Society and Pork Producers Organisation.

On moving to the UK in 2003 he became a veterinarian at Brant Broughton, near Lincoln, involved with herd health, farm animal work and Defra duties.

Mr French, who has worked in the animal health sector in the Eastern Counties since 1991, joins Pfizer responsible for key accounts in the southern half of England and Wales, together with all Ireland.

He began a sales career in the agricultural field in 1985 and has specialised in sales and marketing to the livestock sector. An associate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, he won the Sales Professional of the Year in the pharmaceutical and health care category in 2002 - and is to date the only person to achieve this from the animal health sector.

Outside work, he has competed in the last three London Marathons, raising money for leukaemia research and also supports farm vets' fund-raising activities in his native Norfolk.