Pamela Nicholson will retire as CEO of Enterprise Holdings Inc. at the end of this year, the company announced Friday. Her successor will be named after a board meeting in December.
Nicholson, 59, is just the third CEO in the private company's 62-year history and the first to have been from outside its founding Taylor family. She joined the company in 1981 after graduating from the University of Missouri. Nicholson was named CEO in 2013 after being promoted to COO in 2003 and president in 2008.
As CEO, Nicholson is the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. car rental industry, the company said. She was named to the Automotive News list of the 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry in 2015.
"She joined our company fresh out of college and rose from a management trainee behind the rental counter to our top leadership team through a combination of great management skills, keen business instincts and just plain hard work," Enterprise Executive Chairman Andrew Taylor said in a release. "She has played a critical role in taking Enterprise from a regional car rental company to a global provider of total transportation solutions."
Enterprise is the largest vehicle rental company in the world as measured by fleet and revenue, with more than 2 million cars and trucks in operation globally and $25.9 billion in revenue in its 2019 fiscal year.
