Tianne Doyle, like others in charge at Bradenton- based retail chain Bealls, has read leadership bestsellers such as Jim Collins’ Good to Great. She’s clear, though, on the source of her “leadership DNA.” In her case the DNA is literal, not figurative.
“My leadership was without a doubt inspired by my father, Billy Turner,” Doyle says. Turner was a sports star at Polk County’s Auburndale High School who had a legendary career as a Hillsborough County football coach. She says he showed her how to “see potential in others. How can I inspire and encourage others to be the best version of themselves?”
She credits her grandmother too. Helen Cabrera, the child of Spanish immigrants to Ybor City, owned her own Tampa dress shop for 60 years and worked until she was 90. Doyle, who as a youth envisioned owning her own business, got her start there. “She’s a reminder to stay open, that you can learn something every day for your entire career,” Doyle says.
A Florida State University grad, Doyle joined Macy’s in executive training to learn business with the intent of starting one of her own. Then in 1991, she was approached by Bealls, interviewed with third-generation, now retired, CEO Bob Beall and even sang for him the Bealls jingle she heard on Tampa media growing up. (The jingle taught generations of Floridians to pronounce Bealls like a bell rather than Beale). Today, she’s game to sing the jingle when asked.
Doyle started with Bealls in misses swim and sportswear and added responsibilities in the 34 years that followed. “When I got here,” fourth-generation CEO and 20-year company veteran Matt Beall told her in a podcast earlier this year, “I looked up to you … Very established and very well spoken, one of the better merchants we’ve ever had at the company.”
She became president in 2023 and oversees store operations, merchandizing, planning and allocation, marketing, e-commerce, supply chain and logistics.
Bealls, founded in 1915 with the motto “outfitting families for less,” has approximately 650 stores in 22 states, $1.93 billion in annual revenue and 15,650 employees. It ranks 44th on FLORIDA TREND'S list of the state’s largest private companies by revenue. It plans another 120 stores in the next three years. Its retail chains include the off-price value retailer Bealls, Florida-focused Bealls Florida and home goods chain Home Centric.
Bealls scratched Doyle’s business-owner itch. “If someone is entrepreneurial, this is a place for them,” she says. “I always approached the business and the customer as if this was my own store.”