More leadership changes at Hertz as new batch of executives named

Mere weeks after again replacing its CEO and CFO and announcing its chief operating officer had resigned, The Hertz Co. on Monday named five new executives to a leadership team that has been in upheaval for several years now.

The new hires include a new chief commercial officer and a new general counsel as well as executive vice presidents for operations in North America, fleet management and technical operations.

The company, in a news release announcing the changes, says the hires “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.”

In just the past couple months, the Estero-based rental car giant named is its fifth CEO in seven years, Gil West; its third CFO in 15 months, Scott Haralson; and lost its second COO in a year, Justin Keppy.

This all has mostly happened since Hertz exited bankruptcy in 2021 and then bailed on an ambitious electric vehicle program earlier this year.

West, in the release announcing the that new hires, says they “add capacity and capabilities that complement our existing leadership team's deep institutional knowledge of the rental car industry.”

None of the five, at least according to the biographical information released by the company, have worked in the rental car industry before coming to Hertz.

Hertz’s revenue rose 2% to $2.1 billion the first quarter of this year when compared with the same period last year according to the company’s most recent earnings statement released in April. Its second quarter earnings call is scheduled for August 1.

The new hires are:

• Sandeep Dube was named executive vice president, chief commercial officer. Dube most recently served as chief operating officer at Intuit Mailchimp. Before that, he was chief commercial officer at Activision Blizzard and held senior leadership roles at Delta Air Lines, including CEO of Delta Vacations.
• Katherine Lee Martin was named executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. She has served as the company's interim general counsel and assistant corporate secretary since April after joining Hertz in May 2023. Before coming to the company, she held senior leadership positions at X Corp. and Twitter. Before Twitter, she spent more than a decade as an assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Henry Kuykendall was named executive vice president, North America operations. He spent 33 years at Delta Air Lines, most recently as senior vice president of airport operations, overseeing Boston Logan International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Airport, LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• Greg May was named executive vice president, fleet management. He served as president and chief executive officer at Valkyrie BTO Aviation, a commercial aircraft investment company for Blackstone. He has held leadership positions at Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and United Airlines and founded aircraft leasing company Q Aviation.
• Mike Moore was named executive vice president, technical operations. He most recently served as executive vice president for spaceline technical operations at Virgin Galactic. 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.