Mr. Scherr, who retired as Goldman’s chief financial officer at the end of the year, succeeds
Mark Fields,
a former
Ford Motor Co.
chief who has been serving as interim CEO since October.
He takes over a company that was a veritable bingo card of the pandemic economy. Hertz filed for bankruptcy in May 2020 after the falling value of its used-car fleet caused a debt crunch. It quickly became the original meme stock, cheered on by an army of retail traders—foreshadowing the Reddit-fueled mania around
GameStop Corp.
and others a year later.
And it turned out to be a surprise winner as the pandemic reshaped Americans’ habits.
Far from evaporating, demand for rental cars heated up during the pandemic as many consumers avoided planes and public…