SWFL car rental giant exec prioritizes constant improvement

To hear Ahsan Shaikh speak one would never be able to guess his origin story. The director of operations of Avis Budget Group’s Fort Myers-based Southwest Florida unit only arrived in the United States 15 years ago from Pakistan, and he, stunningly, did not speak a word of English. 

Today, those biographical details are an essential part of what makes him so good at his job, managing almost 200 employees across 16 locations from Sarasota to Naples.

Photo by Mark Wemple

“I had to fight to be where I am right now, not knowing the language that’s being used every day,” he says. “That motivates me, seeing that if I can do it, everybody can do it, right? They just need the right mentor, and that’s where I step in and try to help them out.” 

How Shaikh ended up at Avis is a story of chance — his first job in the U.S. was working for American Express, and when his two-year Florida project ended, they told him to move to New York. That wouldn’t work for him, he says, since the cold was not an option. But through his various work trips, he had formed a relationship with Avis, and there happened to be an open manager of operations position at Tampa International Airport. 

That was 10 years ago, and since then, Shaikh has worked in various management positions before his most recent promotion. And working his way up has its advantages. “I started from that level, so I can understand their struggle,” Shaikh says. “The roles that are reporting to me, I’ve done all those roles, so it’s easier for me to connect with those people.” 

His weeks are busy and geographically varied: two days in Sarasota and three days in Fort Myers. And he’s making progress on his goals. When he started in his current role in April, the Fort Myers location had a Google rating of 3.5. It’s now at 4.7. In Sarasota, that rating went up from 3 to 4.2.

Whether it’s a customer or an employee, Shaikh is always focused on the human side of the business in an industry that usually just gives consumers headaches. When Brazilian customers in Fort Myers realized only after they dropped off their car that they had left their passports under the seat, Shaikh didn’t just attempt to comfort the customer. He located the car — it was already in Orlando — and drove up to a Walt Disney World parking lot to pick up the passports. He then drove back to Fort Myers and got the customers their passports in time. 

“I could have been like, hey, go file a claim on lost and found,” he said. “We’ll mail it to you. But knowing that they had to go back to Brazil, that their kids were going back to school, I was like, give me some time. We’ll figure out a way to get it.”