Zenith has appointed Tom Brewer to lead its national rental offering, which provides cars and specialist vehicles on both short- and long-term hire.

Tom Brewer, rental commercial director at Zenith

Brewer, who assumes the role of rental commercial director, will manage the company’s 40-strong in-house rental team and will focus on supporting Zenith’s existing lease customers with their rental needs as well as building the direct rental customer base.

Zenith’s rental proposition supports some of the UK’s most well-known brands with their mobility solutions and provided more than 1.7 million rental days across 600-plus corporate customers last year.

With more than 23 years’ experience in the automotive sector, Brewer joins Zenith from Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS), where he was most recently fleet sales director. He has also held previous positions at Enterprise, Europcar and LeasePlan UK.

He succeeds previous rental CEO, Andrew Kirby, who has taken on a new role to lead the group’s transformation programme, which will see the business move onto one asset management platform in a move to ensure a best-in-class user experience.

Brewer, who officially starts in September and will sit within the Group’s Corporate and Consumer division, said: “It’s great to be returning to the rental industry where I started my career over 20 years ago and I’m really looking forward to working with the team to further enhance our proposition. Rental will play a critical part of the mobility landscape over the coming years as suppliers, corporate customers and drivers navigate new technologies, seek unrivalled flexibility and transition towards net zero.”

Ian Hughes, CEO of the Corporate and Consumer division, continued: “We’re incredibly proud of our rental offering, which provides unrivalled vehicle availability, exceptional customer service and a fully integrated solution for our customers. Tom’s experience and commercial acumen will enable him to continue the great performance while charting the course for future growth and development. We look forward to welcoming him to the team.”