Pool Scouts is excited to announce the appointment of David Mele as the new brand president. With an impressive background in business management and a track record of driving growth, Mele is set to lead Pool Scouts into a new era.
“My style is one that is highly collaborative — I like to be a constructive partner with business owners, franchisees or anyone I’m working with,” said Mele. “My entire career has been spent working with a wide range of business owners, so I’m excited to bring that experience to Pool Scouts, support our franchisees’ businesses and accelerate momentum for the growth of the system overall.”
Born in Washington D.C. and raised in Maryland, Mele attended the University of Virginia, where he majored in business with a concentration in marketing. After graduating, he joined Accenture, a global management consulting company, where he spent five years in the change management practice.
“I worked with clients on new product launches and innovation, which was a fantastic experience,” Mele said. “I worked with several Fortune 500 companies, learning about the various functions of a business and how they worked together to drive performance.”
Driven by a desire to shift from advising to running a business, Mele pursued an MBA and joined Landmark Media Enterprises, a privately held media company based in Virginia. “I was looking for a fast track to P&L ownership,” he said. “I had a chance to work in a variety of functions and eventually ran digital operations for our flagship newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot.” Mele’s leadership extended to running a regional news and entertainment portal and building a digital agency that helped businesses with search engine marketing, website development and social media. He then served as publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and president of Pilot Media.
In 2014, Mele became the president of Homes.com. He spent the next decade growing the company into the second largest real estate listing platform, with 100 million unique visitors a month.
“That was a very exciting journey,” Mele said. “We grew it to the point of being acquired, and I learned all about how to grow businesses, optimize digital marketing channels, and drive top-line revenue growth.”
“We have a strong, established franchise brand and we are a premium national pool service business with a lot of growth ahead,” said Mele. “The corporate team has worked hard to drive momentum, and I am excited to leverage my experience and skill set to help accelerate that momentum for the business.”
Looking ahead, Mele’s vision for Pool Scouts is clear and ambitious. “One of our big goals is to continue to increase franchisee engagement,” he said. “We want to create forums for franchisees to come together, share best practices and collaborate with the corporate team to fuel growth for each of their individual territories.”
Read the full article on Franchising.com here.
