Chrissy Taylor’s grandfather founded the car rental giant. Her father built it into the industry’s dominant player. Now she’s driving the $35 billion firm into the future of mobility.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2024/05/22/why-enterprise-is-one-of-the-worlds-best-private-companies/?sh=58fe59d2936b
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Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:02 Jack's time in the military really set the foundation of our culture.
00:07 Because he was flying off aircraft carriers, that was dangerous.
00:10 They didn't have radars.
00:12 It was about mission, discipline, teamwork.
00:15 You didn't know if you were coming back.
00:16 And so those philosophies in the military
00:19 helped shape the way we think about the business today.
00:22 And what's so important for us in moving forward is that we recognize our history,
00:28 our legacy, what has made us so successful.
00:31 And we wanna bring that into the future.
00:33 [MUSIC]
00:38 >> Chrissy Taylor is the third generation of her family to run car rental giant
00:43 Enterprise Mobility, formerly known as Enterprise Rent-A-Car,
00:47 which her grandfather Jack Taylor founded nearly 70 years ago.
00:52 And her father, Andy Taylor, ran for nearly two decades.
00:57 >> Chrissy took over as CEO in January 2020 after starting at the bottom at
01:03 a car rental branch in 2000 and working her way up through
01:07 the company over nearly two decades.
01:10 [MUSIC]
01:11 >> So I started my career in 1995 as an intern during my freshman year in college
01:16 at the St. Louis Group.
01:17 And it was a great entry into the business and into the operations.
01:22 I loved it so much, I became a full-time management trainee in 2000.
01:27 And from there, worked my way up to a branch manager.
01:30 And then from there, I had 17 different roles within the company,
01:33 moving around, understanding how big we were, what different departments were.
01:38 And then I took an opportunity over in our international department.
01:41 And so I worked internationally for three years and then came back.
01:46 I ran North America, and then eventually became CEO in 2020.
01:51 [MUSIC]
01:54 >> I love the experience of being in the management training program because
01:58 you're really learning how to run your own business.
02:01 You are being your own entrepreneur, and you are developing marketing plans.
02:06 You are driving customer service.
02:08 And so it really is getting your MBA and
02:12 running your own business when you become a branch manager.
02:15 And so the management trainee is a critical piece of the puzzle when we
02:19 think about the growth at Enterprise Mobility.
02:21 [MUSIC]
02:29 >> Christy's dad, who had served as CEO for nearly two decades,
02:34 decided that he was ready to move on and
02:36 transition into the executive chairman role, which he still holds today in 2013.
02:42 And at that point, Christy had been working her way up through the ranks.
02:46 And he kinda knew that she was the logical successor, but
02:51 she was still very young at that point.
02:52 So instead of forcing it and making her CEO, maybe before she was ready,
02:58 they actually tapped the first non-family CEO,
03:03 a woman by the name of Pam Nicholson, who wasn't family, but she was like family.
03:07 She had joined Enterprise right out of college and been there for 30, 40 years.
03:12 So she served as CEO for that sort of seven year gap between when
03:17 Andy stepped aside in 2013 and Christy became CEO in 2020.
03:22 From everything I've seen,
03:23 it seems like it was a smart decision that really benefited the company.
03:26 [MUSIC]
03:28 >> Pam has always been a huge supporter of mine, a mentor, a trusted friend.
03:33 And she taught me how to operate the business.
03:36 We were going to Europe.
03:37 We needed to make sure that our European team was successful in
03:41 any country that we operated in.
03:43 We needed to make sure that we were growing the business,
03:45 we were promoting our employees.
03:47 They had the tools to be successful, and
03:50 then we were providing great customer service.
03:52 And so Pam was a true illustration of our four core areas and
03:56 driving the business forward.
03:58 Our company is successful because we are privately held, multi-generation, and
04:05 we invest for the long haul.
04:06 >> Late last year, Chrissy rebranded the company,
04:13 which had been known as Enterprise Holdings previously, to Enterprise Mobility.
04:19 And the reason, as she explains it, for that was less to signal
04:26 major changes to the business that were coming imminently, and
04:32 more so to reflect the fact that they have, over time,
04:38 evolved to do a lot more than people think of when they think of enterprise.
04:43 Traditional car rental, we estimate, accounts for about two-thirds of their
04:49 sales, but the company does a lot of other things accounting for
04:52 that other one-third of sales.
04:54 They rent trucks, they sell and lease cars.
04:58 They even have a software like Integral, which is used by insurance companies and
05:04 parts makers and auto shops to really streamline the post-accident
05:10 communication process.
05:12 Even among private companies, Enterprise really stands out in terms of
05:17 the Taylor family's just really obsession with
05:21 reinvesting in the business over and over and over again.
05:25 [MUSIC]
05:34 We changed the company name to Enterprise Mobility because it better
05:38 describes who we are and what we do.
05:40 So Jack Taylor, my grandfather, founded the company in 1957 with seven cars
05:45 as a leasing business, and today we have nine distinct mobility lines.
05:50 We're in over 90 countries around the world, and
05:53 we have 90,000 amazing employees.
05:56 And so we have grown, we have evolved, and so
05:59 Enterprise Mobility better tells the story of what we do.
06:02 Better tells the story of who we are and what we do, and
06:06 that positions us for the future.
06:08 [MUSIC]
06:11 >> They've actually taken a very cautious approach to EVs relative to some of
06:16 their peers, which has turned out to be prudent.
06:19 As Hertz in particular has found that racing into EVs was maybe not,
06:24 they sort of got ahead of customer demand there.
06:28 [MUSIC]
06:29 >> Chrissy is through their venture arm, Enterprise Mobility Ventures,
06:33 really pushing her team to look at what's out there.
06:36 And so they're investing in companies that may play a role in
06:41 the future of the mobility space.
06:43 As it relates to EVs, they're investing in companies that work on
06:48 electric charging stations.
06:51 They have investments in companies that are doing work on autonomous driving.
06:57 And then they're looking even further out and starting to think about what might
07:02 happen with things like nuclear fission and hydrogen and who are the companies
07:06 in that space that would make sense to partner with.
07:09 [MUSIC]
07:12 >> We are prepared for EV, we could be prepared for autonomous vehicle.
07:16 Whatever technology comes, we really wanna make sure that we're putting
07:21 the customer at the center of all of that and grow our core businesses.
07:25 That's when we're successful, and that's what we've done for over 65 years.
07:30 [MUSIC]
07:35 [MUSIC]
07:38 >> Chrissy started in January 2020.
07:40 By mid-March, COVID had hit in full force.
07:45 It was unlike anything the car rental industry had ever faced.
07:51 What we heard was that she's just really a natural leader and
07:54 grabbed the bull by the horns.
07:56 And I think that made a huge difference.
08:00 She had to make some tough decisions.
08:02 There just simply weren't enough cars.
08:04 So they had to make the decision to close down a bunch of their retail branches to
08:09 focus on their business to business customers,
08:13 which account for an estimated two-thirds of their sales.
08:17 Those choices, while hard, really benefited the company in helping
08:22 them get through the pandemic.
08:24 Coming out of COVID in 2023,
08:26 they reported two consecutive years of record revenue.
08:31 Hertz went bankrupt during COVID, and Avis did a little better, but
08:36 their credit rating was downgraded.
08:38 And Enterprise managed to maintain their balance sheet strength and
08:43 their credit ratings, which I think says a lot.
08:46 [MUSIC]
08:47 >> One of the things I learned very quickly becoming CEO in January 2020 was
08:53 that I cannot over communicate to the team.
08:56 Over communication, whether in times of challenge, concern, issue, and
09:02 over communication when we're in times of good and thanking people and
09:07 recognizing people, you've got to do that.
09:10 You have to do that.
09:11 And so my number one lesson that I have learned since being CEO in 2020 was,
09:16 I cannot over communicate, and I enjoy talking to our team, and
09:20 it's the right thing to do.
09:22 >> So the Taylor family, they have a pair of charitable foundations which
09:27 together have given away more than a billion dollars to date.
09:31 One is the Enterprise Mobility Foundation,
09:34 which really serves all of the global communities at the business.
09:38 And then there's the family's Crawford Taylor Foundation,
09:43 which is St. Louis focused.
09:45 And so it's focused on a bunch of different areas, but
09:50 it all gets at revitalizing St. Louis.
09:54 [MUSIC]
09:55 >> Another one of our founding philosophies is give back to the communities that
09:59 have made us so successful.
10:01 We brought an MLS team, Citi, SC, into St.
10:05 Louis, and the community totally stepped up.
10:09 Making sure we're giving back to the communities that have made us so
10:12 successful falls right in line with our values.
10:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]