Empathy at Neighborly Scale with Mike Davis
Empathy is not a soft idea in business. It is a leadership capability that shapes trust, service, culture, and performance.
In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, we welcome Mike Davis, Chief Executive Officer of Neighborly, the world’s largest home services company. Neighborly includes more than 30 brands and 5,500 franchises, collectively serving more than 14 million customers through the repair, maintenance, and enhancement of homes and businesses.
Mike brings deep experience leading franchise systems across multiple industries, including Mathnasium Learning Centers and Valpak, where he helped drive growth, strengthen operations, and support franchise owners.
In Empathy at Neighborly Scale, we explore:
• Why empathy is essential to modern leadership
• How empathy supports trust in home services
• Why franchise owners need both systems and human support
• How leaders balance performance, accountability, and care
• Why service businesses grow stronger through community connection
• How empathy becomes a competitive advantage at scale
🎙️ Hosted by Stephen Sakach and Tullio Siragusa🎧 Produced by Martha Huerta
When empathy is built into leadership, service becomes more than a transaction. It becomes a system of trust between brands, owners, teams, and the communities they serve.
CEO of Neighborly
Mike Davis joined Neighborly as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in July 2024. He is based in the company’s Irving, Texas office. Neighborly is the world's largest home services company with more than 30 brands and 5,500 franchises collectively serving 14 million+ customers by repairing, maintaining, and enhancing their homes and businesses.
Mike is a highly successful CEO with deep experience in franchising. He served as the CEO of Mathnasium Learning Centers, the leading math-only supplemental education franchise with 1,200 centers across 10 countries. There, he led key initiatives that resulted in double-digit systemwide sales and double-digit same-store sales growth.
Prior to that, as CEO of Valpak, a franchised network and leader in direct mail and digital marketing, Mike helped transform them from a best-in-class printer to a best-in-class sales and marketing organization. He institutionalized their franchise base, launched new products and services, and executed mergers and acquisitions that all drove significant growth.
Mike has more than two decades of leadership experience, including 13 years with Universal Music Group (UMG), where he became Executive Vice President and General Manager and was responsible for driving strategic and tactical operations for a division that outperformed seven of eight divisions within UMG by 70% for four consecutive years.
His leadership has spanned companies across diverse fields, including multi-unit franchising, B2B, B2C, eCommerce, direct-to-consumer, third-party logistics, digital …
