Hertz Strengthens Leadership Team With Key Executive Appointments

by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:50 PM ET, Mon July 8, 2024

WHY IT RATES: One of the biggest car rental companies in the world unveiled a leadership shakeup.—Donald Wood, Breaking News Senior Writer.

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., a leading global rental car company, announced key appointments that will strengthen its leadership team and sharpen the Company's focus on driving enhanced profitability through operational excellence, superior customer service, strategic fleet management, cost control, and premium revenue.

Sandeep Dube will join Hertz as Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer on July 22, 2024, and Katherine Lee Martin, who currently serves as Hertz's Interim General Counsel, will be appointed to Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, effective immediately.

In addition, the following leaders are joining Hertz this month: Henry Kuykendall as Executive Vice President, North America Operations; Greg May as Executive Vice President, Fleet Management; and Mike Moore as Executive Vice President, Technical Operations. Each executive will report to Hertz Chief Executive Officer Gil West.

"The leaders announced today, along with our new CFO Scott Haralson, add capacity and capabilities that complement our existing leadership team's deep institutional knowledge of the rental car industry," said Hertz Chief Executive Officer Gil West. "With this best-in-class leadership team, we are now set to execute our strategy to deliver sustainable growth and create value by excelling at the basics – elevating our operational performance across every facet of our business with continued process improvement, technological and product innovation, and mobilizing our best and most valued asset – our 27,000 employees globally – to deliver an unmatched customer experience."

West added, "Our enhanced executive team, and the added resilience and flexibility afforded by the capital we recently raised, enable us to pursue our fleet rotation plan on an accelerated timeline, deliver our cost and revenue improvement initiatives, and allow Hertz to reach its full potential. We are at an exciting inflection point in our path to generate greater value for our customers, employees, and shareholders."

Sandeep Dube, Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer, will lead global commercial strategy and revenue generation for Hertz through an integrated customer-centric approach, overseeing revenue management and pricing, corporate sales and strategic partnerships, customer experience, product development, loyalty programs, marketing, and franchise. Dube has over 25 years of experience leading transformational growth for businesses. He most recently served as Chief Operating Officer at Intuit Mailchimp. Before that, he was Chief Commercial Officer at Activision Blizzard, and he held senior leadership roles at Delta Air Lines, including Senior Vice President, Revenue Management, leading revenue, product strategy, and commercial delivery, Senior Vice President, Digital, Loyalty, Lounges, and Consumer Insights, and Chief Executive Officer of Delta Vacations.

Katherine Lee Martin, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, will continue to oversee Hertz's global legal affairs, government affairs, as well as sustainability and social impact teams. Martin has served as the Company's Interim General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary since April 2024, after joining Hertz in May 2023 as Vice President, Chief Counsel. Prior to joining Hertz, she held senior leadership positions at X Corp. and Twitter, where she oversaw the company's global portfolio of highly complex litigation, regulatory, and competition matters. Before joining Twitter, Martin spent more than a decade as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Henry Kuykendall, Executive Vice President, North America Operations, will oversee airport and off-airport car rental operations across North America. Kuykendall previously spent 33 years at Delta Air Lines, where he held several key leadership roles focused on operations, customer service and sales, and the development of best-in-class processes. He most recently served as Senior Vice President, Airport Operations, East, overseeing all airport operations at Boston Logan International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport. In that role, Kuykendall also oversaw Delta's operations at 41 stations in the East and at 137 smaller airport locations across the U.S., which comprised over 20,000 employees and contractors.

Greg May, Executive Vice President, Fleet Management, will lead all aspects of Hertz's fleet management, including fleet procurement and strategy, analytics, and vehicle remarketing. May has over 35 years of experience managing commercial aviation fleets and supply chains and has held leadership positions at Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines, among other companies. He also founded aircraft leasing company Q Aviation and launched Valkyrie BTO Aviation, a commercial aircraft investment company for Blackstone where he most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mike Moore, Executive Vice President, Technical Operations, will lead all aspects of Hertz's fleet maintenance. Due to his over 25 years of experience managing fleet operations and maintenance, Moore has expertise in overseeing operations and delivering process improvements that reduce costs and drive enhanced financial performance. He has held leadership positions at Delta Air Lines, where he spent a decade in operations-focused roles of increasing responsibility, and at Northwest Airlines, among others. He most recently served as Executive Vice President, Spaceline Technical Operations at Virgin Galactic.

SOURCE: Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. press release.

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