Rob Andrews joins from Hightown Housing Association, one of the largest housing associations in East England, where he was comms manager for the last two years.
Prior to this he was PR manager for Hertfordshire Constabulary.
Andrews is now head of corporate comms, supervising a team of seven at the UK's national mapping agency.
The mapping agency has currently drawn up a shortlist of PR agencies to handle some B2B and B2C project work. It hopes to have an agency in place by the end of the year
OS wants to change its 'hiker on a hill' image and show its work includes more than producing paper maps, said Andrews.
It is planning a campaign to launch in January called 'Relied On', which will explain to the public how much of Britain relies on its mapping services.