His appointment comes less than six months after Enterprise Holdings terminated a Master License Agreement that Europcar held to operate the National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands in Europe. Mr Nigro will play a key role in determining how those brands are rolled out across the Continent to serve the needs of specific rental customers.

Mr Nigro joined the company nearly 31 years ago as a graduate on the Management Trainee Programme in Southern California and most recently served as managing director UK and Ireland for the past six years.

He takes over Enterprise’s European operations from Jim Burrell, who will retire from the business in July. Burrell, who has also been with Enterprise for more than 30 years, came to run Enterprise’s UK operations in 1997 when the business had only a handful of branches. He subsequently oversaw its expansion throughout the UK and into other European markets such as Ireland, Germany, France and Spain, as well as further afield.

Enterprise is currently recruiting internally to replace Mike Nigro as head of UK & Ireland operations.