How Enterprise Became A $35 Billion Family-Owned Car Rental Empire

[Music] Jack's time in the military really set the foundation of our culture because he was flying off aircraft carriers that was dangerous they didn't have Radars it was about Mission discipline teamwork you didn't know if you were coming back and so those philosophies in the military help shape the way we think about the business today and what's so important for us in moving forward is that we recognize our history our Legacy what has made us so successful and we want to bring that into the future Chrissy Taylor is the third generation of her family to run car rental giant Enterprise Mobility formerly known as Enterprise renar which her grandfather Jack Taylor founded nearly 70 years ago and her father Andy Taylor ran for nearly two decades Chrissy took over as CEO in Jan anuary 2020 after starting you know at the bottom at a uh car rental branch in 2000 and working her way up through the company over nearly two decades so I started my career in 1995 as an intern during my freshman year in college at the St Louis group and it was a great entry into the business and into the operations I loved it so much I became a full-time management trainee in 2000 and from there worked my way up to a branch manager and then from there I had 17 different roles within the company moving around understanding how big we were what different departments were and then I took an opportunity over in our International department and so I worked internationally for 3 years and then came back I ran North America and then eventually became CEO in 2020 I love the experience of being in the management training program because you're really learning how to run your own business you are being your own entrepreneur and you are developing marketing plans you are driving customer service and so it really is getting your MBA and running your own business when you become a branch manager and so the management training is a critical piece of the puzzle when we think about the growth at Enterprise Mobility [Music] 's dad who had served as CEO for nearly two decades decided that he was ready to move on and transition into the executive chairman role which he still holds today in 2013 and at that point Chrissy had been working her way up through the ranks and he kind of knew that she you know was The Logical successor but she was still very young at that point so instead of you know forcing it and making her CEO maybe before she was ready they actually tapped the first nonfamily CEO a Woman by the name of Pam Nicholson who wasn't family but she was like family she had joined Enterprise right out of college and been there for 30 40 years so she served as CEO for that sort of seven-year gap between when Andy stepped aside in 2013 and Chrissy became CEO in 2020 from everything I've seen it seems like it was a smart decision that really benefited the company Pam has always been a huge supporter of mine a mentor a trusted friend and she taught me how to operate the business we were going to Europe we needed to make sure that our European team was successful in any country that we operated in we need to make sure that we were growing the business we were promoting our employees they had the tools to be successful and they were providing great customer service and so Pam was a true illustration of our four core areas and driving the business forward our company is successful because we are privately held multigeneration and we invest for the Long Haul late last year Chrissy rebranded the company which had been known as Enterprise Holdings previously to Enterprise mobility and the reason as she explains it for that was you know less to Signal you know major changes to the business that were coming imminently and more so to reflect the fact that they have overtime evolved to do a lot more than people think of when they think of Enterprise you know traditional car rental we estimate accounts for about 2/3 of their sales but the company does a lot of other things accounting for that other one3 of sales they rent trucks they sell and Lease cars they even have you know a soft Ware like integral which is used by insurance companies and parts makers and auto shops to really streamline the the post accident communication process even among private companies Enterprise really stands out in terms of you know the Taylor family is just really obsession with reinvesting in the business over and over and over again [Music] we changed the company name to Enterprise Mobility because it better describes who we are and what we do so Jack Taylor my grandfather founded the company in 1957 with seven cars as a leasing business and today we have nine distinct Mobility lines we're in over 90 countries around the world and we have 90,000 amazing employees and so we have grown we have evolved and so Enterprise Mobility better tells the story of who we are and what we do and that positions us for the future they've actually taken a very uh cautious approach to EVS relative to some of their peers which has turned out to be prudent as Herz in particular has found that racing into EVS was maybe not they sort of got ahead of customer demand there Chris is through their Venture arm Enterprise Mobility Ventures really pushing her team to look at what's out there and so they're investing in companies that may play a role in the future of the mobility space as it relates to EVS they're investing in companies that work on electric charging stations they have investments in companies that are doing work on autonomous driving and then they're looking you know even further out and starting to think about what might happen with things like nuclear fishing and hydrogen and who are the companies in that space that would make sense to partner with we are prepared for Ev we could be prepared for autonomous vehicle whatever technology comes we really want to make sure that we're putting the customer at the center of all of that and grow our core businesses that's when we're successful and that's what we've done for over 65 [Music] years Chrissy started in January 2020 by mid-march Co had hit in full force it was unlike anything the the car rental industry had ever faced what we heard was that she's just really a natural leader and grab the bull by the horns and I think that made a made a huge difference she had to make some tough decisions there just simply weren't enough cars so they uh had to make the decision to close down a bunch of their retail branches to focus on their businesso business customers which account for an estimated 2third of their sales those choices while hard you know really benefited the company and helping them get through the pandemic coming out of Co in 2023 they you know reported two consecutive years of of record Revenue Herz went bankrupt during Co and AIS did a little better but their credit rating was downgraded and Enterprise managed to maintain their balance sheet strength and their credit ratings which I think says a lot one of the things I learned very quickly becoming CEO in January 2020 was that I cannot overcommunication whether in times of challenge you know concern issue and overcommunication when we're in times of good and thanking people and recognizing people you've got to do that you have to do that and so my number one lesson that I have learned since being CEO in 2020 was I cannot overc communicate and I enjoy talking to our team and it's the right thing to do so the Taylor family they have a pair of charitable foundations which together have given away more than a billion dollars to date one is the Enterprise Mobility Foundation which really serves all of the global communities that the business and then there's the fam's Crawford Taylor Foundation which is St Louis focused and so it's you know focused on a bunch of different areas but it all gets at you know revitalizing St Lis another one of our founding philosophies is give back to the communities that have made us so successful we brought an MLS team City SC into St Louis and the community totally stepped up making sure we're giving back to the communities that have made us so successful Falls right in line with our values

Channel: Forbes

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Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, Enterprise, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, car rental companies, how much are car rental companies worth, family owned business, Family-owned Businesses, Billion Dollar Businesses, Female led business, St. Louis, MLS in St. Louis, companies in missouri, how to build a billion dollar business

Id: ydW_A5FRblE

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2024