St. Pete Emeritus: Anne Drake McMullen

According to the Miriam-Webster dictionary, the title Emeritus is bestowed upon “a person retired from professional life but permitted to retain as an honorary title the rank of the last office held.” St. Pete Emeritus is a recurring series shining a light on citizens who have given much to our city, and are now transitioning to a well-deserved retirement.

After 14 years as a cornerstone of the Doyle Wealth Management executive team, Anne Drake McMullen – most recently the financial services company’s Chief Development Officer – has logged out of the big business mainframe for the last time.

McMullen’s retirement, effective Dec. 31, caps an impressive career that included terms as Chair of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, and part of its Economic Development Corporation (she was a co-founding member of the EDC Board of Governors). McMullen was also president of the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club, and affiliated with numerous civic organizations.

It was, McMullen says, simply “time” to step down – she’s midway through her 60s – but mainly she wanted to spend more time with her grandsons, age 3 and 5, in New York. “They’re only young once,” she said. “This time is special and important.

“My daughter and son-in-law both work full time jobs, and when they say ‘Can you come watch the kids over the holidays, and in the summertime when they’re out of school?’, the answer is yes. Whatever the dates are, yes. I have no schedule.”

With husband Neil McMullen.

Her husband is Neil McMullen, president of a Clearwater-based consulting group for nonprofits, and a member of one of the bay area’s oldest families (think McMullen-Booth Road).

Family is very much on Anne Drake McMullen’s mind these days. “I don’t know what tomorrow brings for me and my husband,” she said. “Right now, we’re both in good health. That could change tomorrow, and I don’t want to wait. I want to sit on the floor, play with my grandkids, be able to chase them and be able to get back up again.”

A Massachusetts native, McMullen attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she earned a B.A. in Political Science. In the capital city, she was a legislative intern for Florida Congressman Dante Fascell, whose grandson, Ben Diamond, would go on to become Pinellas County’s representative in the Florida House.

Fascell was chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 1984 to 1993.

She worked as a lobbyist for the Alexandria, Virginia-based Chain Drug Store Association, and then spent 20 years in Columbus, Ohio, where she served as director of the Ohio State Agency for Nursing Home Administrators.

McMullen moved to St. Petersburg in 2007 to care for her ailing parents. She didn’t have any friends or business connections here. “I just moved, and said ‘God, catch me when I get there.’ And he caught me in spades.”

Financial advisor Bob Doyle and his wife Jill were at the same time launching Doyle Wealth Management. In 2010, on the strong recommendation of people they trusted, the Doyles hired Anne Drake.

“God laid out breadcrumbs for me to follow,” she says. “And it was up to me to pick them up. Because, frankly, my background is in government and politics. How somebody with a degree in political science ended up in a financial services firm … that has nothing to do with Anne. Somebody else was playing marionette.

“I don’t know what Bob and Jill saw in me, but I appreciated being part of their family. And nobody asked me to work a 90-hour week. I worked a 90-hour week because I treasured Bob and Jill Doyle, and treasured what they did in this city.”

Along the way, she met and married Neil McMullen.

Anne Drake McMulen threw herself into working with community organizations, joining Tampa Bay International, the Dali Museum Guild, the Downtown Partnership and the Chamber of Commerce, where she was Treasurer from 2012 through 2020.

She got behind Grow Smarter, the Chamber’s economic development strategy co-developed with the City of St. Petersburg. She still believes wholeheartedly that, since development and growth are inevitable, the city is in good hands. She sees local government, business, the chamber and ordinary citizens as caretakers of something really special.

McMullen likes to invoke the name of William Straub, the visionary civic leader who cleaned up and developed the bayfront park system in the early 20^th century.

“The future of this city rests in the hands of us working together,” she believes. “It is tremendous to watch, and to see this mayor and every past mayor, from Rick Kriseman to Bill Foster to Rick Baker, collaborate with the understanding that we are the next William Straub.

“And we’ve got to get it right. With the Gas Plant District, we gotta get it right. And I think we all understand that.”

In Anne Drake McMullen’s mind business, work and family are inextricably bound. “What Bob and Jill Doyle put together was a family,” she said. “We were a family to each other, and a family to the community. When you manage someone’s retirement assets, family funds, it is deeply personal. People are counting on you to care about them, and care about their families. And we did it in spades. And I think the Doyles are reflective of who we are in St. Petersburg. We love each other and we care about each other.

“We’re a small town, always in only the best ways. A small town, and that’s our strength. And we have to keep that strength. That’s Grow Smarter.”

Following a 2020 company sale to Canada’s CI Financial, both Bob and Jill Doyle retired (in ’22 and ’23, respectively). Doyle Wealth Management is now known as Corient.

For McMullen, the future remains limitless. There is, of course, the joy of her grandchildren. She and Neil plan to travel.

She’s still affiliated with the Dali Guild, and plans to attended the Chamber of Commerce’s 125^th annual meeting Jan. 26. “I may pick up some consulting work,” she said. “I have a lot of passion.

“I love this place more than any place I’ve ever lived in my life. But I don’t want to work a 90-hour week any more.”