American businessman
Stephen Scherr was the chief executive officer of Hertz and a member of its board of directors from February 2022 to March 2024.
Education.
Scherr received his juris doctor at Harvard Law School. Before that he attended Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where he obtained a bachelor of arts degree.
Career.
Scherr joined Goldman Sachs in 1993 as an investment banker, coming from practicing law at Cravath, Swaine &amp; Moore. Scherr spent 28 years at Goldman Sachs in several different strategic and operational leadership roles. Before leaving Goldman Sachs, Scherr was the chief financial officer from 2018 to 2021.
Scherr was named Goldman Sachs’ Chief Strategy Officer in 2014, appointed to the Goldman Sachs Management Committee in 2012, became head of Goldman Sachs’ Latin American operations in 2011 and was the company’s Global Head of Financing.
In 2016, Scherr led Goldman Sachs’ launch of consumer banking, branded as Marcus. He also was CFO during the firm’s launch of AppleCard, in partnership with Apple, Inc., in 2019.
In 2022, Scherr was hired as CEO of Hertz Car Rental. In 2022, Scherr's total compensation from Hertz was $182 million, making him the third highest paid CEO in the US that year.
At Hertz, Scherr significantly expanded Hertz's electric vehicle fleet. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Hertz earnings dropped by $245 million due to depreciation of the value of these cars, as well as repairs costing approximately double what the repairs to a combustion engine would be. In March 2024, Hertz announced that Scherr would step down at the end of the month, and that he would be replaced by Gil West.
Affiliations.
Scherr is on the board of the New York Stem Cell Foundation and the Jewish Museum in New York. He is also a member of The Council on Foreign Relations.