Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr Believes EV, AI and Blended Travel Are All Tailwinds for His Business
Photo Credit: Hertz car rental at Tampa International Airport on Tuesday September 28, 2021 in Tampa, Fla. Hertz / Casey Brooke Lawson
Skift Take
It is indeed fascinating to hear how many operational tech changes are coming into the car rental business, much as it has been a late digital adopter compared to other sectors of travel.
Hertz has been a remarkable turnaround story of the pandemic, during which it went into a massive bankruptcy, came out of it under an investor group led by Knighthead Capital and Certares, and then went public a year ago.
It hired the former chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs earlier this year, Stephen Scherr, to turn around the business, and has been posting record earnings on the backs of huge demand — and high prices — for rental cars as part of the big travel rebound ongoing since last year.
I met Scherr in Riyadh last week at the WTTC Global Summit and talked about the big picture opportunities and challenges he is navigating the company through. For him, all the larger tech and consumer trends are playing in favor of his business and the overall car rentals sector. An edited version of my interview with him, below.
Ali: What drew you to join Hertz, a company that went through bankruptcy during the pandemic?
Scherr: It is both
