COLTON MULLIGAN, the Co-Founder and CEO of FoxFuel Creative LLC, was recently named 2026 Nashpreneur of the Year by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

Mulligan accepted the award June 30 during the Chamber's 2026 Nashpreneurs Conference, which convened under the theme "Built to WIN." 

Chamber members, guest speakers, sponsors and community-at-large ticket-buyers in attendance totaled nearly 100 for this year's event, which took place within The National Museum of African American Music, on Broadway. 

Since it originally popped-up in 2019, the Nashpreneurs Conference has remained a year-by-year half-day "platform" event. The Chamber currently plans to hold it again in 2027.

The initiative is overseen by Veronica Marable Johnson, who is the Chamber's vice president for small-business business initiatives, operating within the Chamber's economic development division. 

VP Johnson said in a Chamber press release, "As CEO of FoxFuel Creative, Colton has built a respected, results-driven agency that helps organizations translate brand clarity into measurable business performance across multiple industries. His consistent demonstration of strategic leadership, business growth, and meaningful impact within Nashville’s entrepreneurial ecosystem make him the right choice for this year’s award." 

The Chamber's award decision-makers were guided to some degree by the Nashpreneur Award criteria that appear later in this story.

Meanwhile, what we'll call "FoxFuel Factors" were working in the background for more than a decade. A sample:  

F1. In 2025, after a competitive process, the Chamber hired the FoxFuel team to conceptualize and produce what turned-out to be the high-impact "UNITED WE CREATE" campaign for Partnership 2030, the latest in a series of five-year economic development pushes that began in 1990. VNC notes that, intentionally or otherwise, the Partnership 2030 theme seems synergistic with the Nashville Innovation Alliance's Cowrite the Future campaign, formally disclosed July 24 via press release from Nashville Innovation Alliance. NIA-related. Mulligan is also represents EO Nashville as an ex officio member of the board of Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

F2. In 2014-15 Mulligan and his two fellow co-founders--Chief Creative Officer Michael "Hutz" Hutzel and Chief Technology Officer Joe Boettcher--registered their FoxFuel enterprise, bought an office building in Berry Hill from and negotiated a friendly carve-out of some clients from their former employer, MMA Creative Inc. The co-founders each own equal shares in both the business and in the building they bought to house it. 

F3. In 2025, Mulligan and FoxFuel got a printed shout-out in the pages of The Art of Startup Failure (2025), written by highly generative Michael Burcham of Nashville. Author Burcham cited Mulligan and FoxFuel as exemplars that managed to avoid the "seductive trap" of neglecting early cultivation of startup culture, thereby increasing the odds of keeping their company focused upon "meaningful purpose," sustained by infusions of creativity, trust, fun and other essentials.

F4. Mulligan is slated in 2027 to become president of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Nashville, succeeding Bill McCleskey. EO Nashville boasts the 3rd-largest EO chapter membership in the world and Mulligan has for some time coached EO member business owners to focus on "purpose" and other priorities, in his role as a ForumSherpa-certified facilitator of such services for EO chapters. Related EO.

F5. FoxFuel's Mulligan and those around him have productively adapted to Mulligan's Type 1 Bipolar Disorder. In the interest of increasing public and professional understanding of such mental health issues, Mulligan is vocal, sometimes serving as a guest speaker, interviewee or case-study subject, and sometimes as an active supporter of others. The CEO, his cofounders and their team have said they take in-stride the ups-and-downs of Bipolar. Mulligan, himself, is a frequent speaker on that and related topics. Brief sample here.

BUSINESS + BACKSTORY

The FoxFuel team says they remain guided by the firm's original maxim -- "Do Great Work with People you love" -- while operating as "a sharp-tongued, no-nonsense agency out of Nashville, built on the tension between sophistication and rebellion." 

FoxFuel now has seven full-time employees and specializes in branding, advertising and marketing. It has no plans to add further W-2 fulltimers. A Chamber speaker profile of the CEO indicates FoxFuel, which as previously mentioned started life with clients carved-out from a previous employer, has generated more than $20MM in client billings in the past decade. 

Its clients have included HCA, Yazoo Brewery, MTE, Lifepoint, Barge Design, The Mathews Company, RC Mathews, Centric Architecture, Ascension, CHS, Hilton Hotels/Home2Suites, Pinnacle Bank, Studio Bank, TSA Pre-Check, Lipscomb, Holland and Knight (Waller), Iron Path Capital, New Mountain Capital, and State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company (SVMIC). 

FoxFuel's outside advisors include local attorney Tony Turnbow, accountant Corey Barnes, and bankers with Pinnacle Bank. Author Burcham remains a friend and source of guidance, Mulligan confirmed.

Prior to cofounding FoxFuel and working with MMAC, Mulligan served as a social-media specialist with DCA/DCPR, the Jackson, Tenn.-based marketing and branding agency; and, as a digital-services account manager for South Central Media, then a Nashville-based broadcast and digital production company, in which he also led classes on social media and digital presence.

Mulligan was born in South Texas while his father was based at U.S. Naval Air Station Chase Field at Beeville.

The future entrepreneur did not remain long in Beeville. In fact, he told VNC that family career relocations led to his attending a succession of K-12 schools. At retirement, his father was in management ranks of Knoxville-based Pilot Travel Centers, aka Flying J (now the Pilot Company sub of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.)

In 2017, Mulligan earned a bachelor's in business and finance at West Tennessee-based Freed-Hardeman University. 

While at Freed-Hardeman, Mulligan's experiences included serving as fund manager of The Clayton Investment Team, which was backed 2007-2019 by Finger, Tenn., native Jim Clayton, co-founder of both Clayton Homes and Clayton Bancorp.

Mulligan migrated to Nashville 16 years ago, in December 2009, after a digital-media career-stop in Jackson, Tenn.

He was still settling-into Music City when the Flood of May 1-2, 2010, brought devastation to much of Middle Tennessee.

He said the flood and Nashvillians' widely applauded response to it were among many factors that have led him to embrace the city as a heartfelt adopter of the region's "Nashville native" ethos, its emphasis on bona fide relationships and its readiness to lean into opportunity.

The CEO and Alyson 'Aly' Evans Mulligan married in 2018. Today, they are Davidson County homeowners, raising children ages 4 and 18 months.

MBA-wielding Aly Mulligan is senior director, Vanderbilt Health Professional Solutions (VHPS), within VU Medical Center. Her LinkedIn profile explains: "VHPS is a for-profit holding company charged with growing VUMC’s commercial LLCs as well as incubating, developing, and launching new commercial products and services out of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. VHPS works directly with teams and entrepreneurs throughout the hospital to provide business support services including strategy and operations expertise, program management, and general business capabilities."

PRIOR AWARD WINNERS + '26 SPONSORS

Since inception of the Nashpreneurs Conference, the Nashpreneur Award winners + affiliations:

2026: Colton Mulligan FoxFuel Creative
2025: Anna-Vija McCloud Piccolo Solutions
2024: Monchere' Holmes-Jones Destination Culture
2023: Mignon Francois The Cupcake Collection
2022: Sam Davidson Nashville Entrepreneur Center
2021: Marcus Whitney Jumpstart Nova
2020: Pandemic gap year
2019: Initial event featured no Award

This year's half-day Nashpreneurs Conference event was sponsored by the Truist Foundation, while the Nashpreneur Award, per se, is thus far solely a Chamber recognition.

Pivotal Partners that support the Nashpreneurs Conference and all other Chamber programming include Gresham Smith and Regions Bank.

Chamber staff said other 'Friends of the Chamber' that helped sponsor the Nashpreneurs Conference 2026 were Amazon, Bank of America, Comcast, and LBMC.

The Conference's Media Sponsor was Tennessean | LocaliQ, the latter a dba for a unit in the LocaliQ unit of USA Today Media Co., Inc. (NYSE:TDAY), parent of The Tennessean.

NASHPRENEUR AWARD CRITERIA (paraphrased)

The Chamber asserts each candidate's business must have demonstrated "operational stability and growth" across a minimum two or three years of continuous operation.

The Chamber also considers "Core Evaluation Criteria" including:

• Leadership excellence reflected in "vision, accountability, and consistency -- building strong teams, making sound decisions, and fostering a positive organizational culture."
• Community impact and engagement by actively contributing to "the Nashville business ecosystem through mentorship, partnerships, or community involvement that supports broader economic growth."
• Brand presence and influence consistent with maintaining "a strong and authentic leadership presence that builds trust, credibility, and visibility within their industry and network."
• Alignment with the values and spirit of the Nashpreneur platform, emphasizing "collaboration, growth, leadership development, and a commitment to lifting others while building their business."

NASHPRENEURS CONFERENCE OBJECTIVES

Veronica Marable Johnson VP-Small Business Initiatives

Chamber staff told VNC, "The Nashpreneurs Conference is the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s comprehensive small business platform, created to advance entrepreneurship, foster opportunity, and position business owners for long-term success. This initiative reflects the region’s commitment to inclusive economic development by delivering targeted support to entrepreneurs across all backgrounds, experiences, and business stages. Through a combination of capacity-building workshops, expert-led sessions, accelerator programs, peer learning, and curated networking experiences, the Nashpreneurs Conference helps business owners strengthen their operations, improve financial readiness, and increase visibility in the marketplace. The initiative also fosters deeper connections across Nashville’s business ecosystem—linking entrepreneurs with mentors, capital providers, and collaborative partners to open doors to new opportunities.

"The Nashpreneurs Conference is a strategic investment in the people and businesses driving innovation, job creation, and community prosperity across Middle Tennessee. Whether launching a startup or scaling a growing enterprise, business owners engaged in the Nashpreneur Conference gain the tools, resources, and relationships to confidently move forward," the Chamber says.

NOTE: The agenda for this year's Nashpreneurs Conference also included recognition of the Chamber's latest Leadership Connect (LC) inductees and other LC alumni who were present for the June 30 event. 

Leadership Connect is categorized in a Chamber January 2026 press release as a Chamber signature event, although the LC program is not currently listed on the Chamber website's Signature Events page.

This article will be updated, as warranted. VNC

. last edited 1400 25 July 2026