The agency said it had made the move after its own research found that analyst reports had more influence on IT decision makers than IT media.
Prior to joining H&K, Pannell spent five years running his own analyst relations business, Serendipp. Before that he worked at Fleishman-Hillard, which he left in 2001.
At H&K he will report to managing director, technology UK, Mark Jackson.
Jackson said: ‘There is a lot of cynicism from senior decision makers in IT about the trade media, and we were finding it increasingly difficult to reach them.'
Describing the results of H&K research, he said: ‘We found that while 45 per cent of senior IT decision makers placed some importance in trade media, 62 per cent placed more on analysts' reports and comment.'
Pannell is leading a team of two and expects to work closely with H&K's 12-strong global analyst relations team.
He is already advising Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Danish company GN Net, and has ‘several other clients in the pipeline'.
Pannell plans to appoint two further senior consultants to his team during 2007.
The agency said it had also questioned 350 senior PROs at technology companies in the UK and found that 44 per cent of them were looking to increase the emphasis they placed on analyst relations within their comms strategies over the next 12 months.
Jackson became H&K's tech MD around 15 months ago (PRWeek, 16 Sep 2005). He has previously worked at Inferno Communications and Ketchum.
