Budget's Sotir Accelerates Into Presidency
<B> Budget's Sotir Accelerates Into Presidency</B>
By Lynn Woods
The Budget Group has named Mark Sotir, formerly senior vice president of operations and reservations, as the new president of the North American division of Budget Rent a Car Corp. The last person to carry the title of president was William Plamondon, who left the company when it was purchased by Sandy Miller, former president of Budget franchisee Team Rental Group, two years ago.
In his new position, Sotir also will absorb the responsibilities of Jeff Hendrickson, who served as Budget Rent a Car's executive vice president, North American rental operations and sales and marketing for 18 months before resigning in early January.
During his four-year tenure at Budget, Sotir has been instrumental in launching many innovative programs, including a new revenue-management system, pricing initiatives and marketing campaigns that have revitalized the Budget brand. He spearheaded the creation of a new travel-agent reward program, along with Perfect Drive, Budget's new loyalty program, and Fastbreak, its new express service.
Sotir also played a central role in the deployment of Budget's Website, which now has booking capabilities, and oversaw the creation of a customer data warehouse.
"He's been focused on the overall profitability of the company," said a spokesperson.
Prior to joining Budget, Sotir, who is just 35 years old and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, served as group marketing manager at the Coca-Cola Co.
Meanwhile, Jim Wood has been appointed vice president of sales at National Car Rental, replacing Robert Briggs, who is now the firm's president. Formerly regional vice president for sales programs, Wood has held a number of key sales positions since joining National as sales rep for Indianapolis in 1979.
National's parent company, Republic Industries, which also owns Alamo Rent a Car, has been building up the international division of its Automotive Rental Group, which is headed by William Lobeck. Mary Carroll, formerly corporate vice president of international development at National, has been promoted as the new vice president of international development at the group. Carroll follows Karen Beard, Alamo's new president, as the second woman to be appointed a high management position at the company.
The division will jointly oversee international development of the company's two car rental brands, although it won't displace the internal international development departments at either National or Alamo, said a Republic spokesperson.
But the biggest news at Republic was the appointment in December of new president John Costello. Formerly senior executive vice president and general manager of marketing for Sears, Roebuck and Co., where he was instrumental in helping to revitalize the Sears brand name, Costello will be responsible for developing and directing Republic's brand building and marketing efforts, overseeing both the automotive retail and automotive rental groups.
Costello's past successes--at positions including president and COO at Nielsen Marketing Research USA, executive vice president of Wells, Rich, Greene advertising agency, and senior vice president of marketing and sales at Pepsi-Cola USA--resulted in his election to the Retail Marketing Hall of Fame in 1997.