I have spent my life in three rooms at once.
A doctorate in how people actually work. Family companies I have co-owned since 2010, rooted in a business my father started in 1964. And AI agents I designed to work alongside our people. Most people teach one of those. I have lived inside all three.
Why the combination matters
Consultants understand strategy but have never signed the front of a paycheck. Coaches understand people but cannot survive a Tuesday on the shop floor. Technologists understand machines but have never run a thing.
Psychologist
A PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Tennessee, and about 25 years serving on church staffs. I work on the human bottleneck behind the business problem, not just the spreadsheet.
Operator
Roughly four decades of operating experience. Second-generation co-owner since 2010 of companies rooted in the fuel-tanker business my father, Pat Fultz, started in 1964. I grew the family business from $6 million to more than $10 million.
Builder
I design and deploy AI agents inside my own companies to handle repeatable work, and I co-founded PartsNow.ai, a live AI-native parts marketplace now in both app stores. Its AI engine is TalkRev.ai, the technology company of my partner Manna Justin. I bring the operator's read on what to build; his team builds the technology.
Everything I share is field-tested first. Not in a classroom. In real companies, some older than I am, with real customers and real consequences when I am wrong.
I don't write the code. I know exactly what to build.
PartsNow.ai is a live, AI-native marketplace for heavy-duty truck and trailer parts. I co-founded it with Manna Justin, whose company TalkRev.ai builds the AI engine. My job was knowing exactly what the industry needed. His team's job was building the technology to deliver it.
The insight came from the shop floor: a technician under a truck often can't name the part he needs. So PartsNow lets him describe the symptom, photograph the greasy component, or point live video at it, and the AI engine, built by TalkRev.ai, identifies it through an assistant named Mike. Mike is free, and answers by phone, text, web, or video, in English and Spanish. "Describe the problem. We'll find the part."
- Live nowWeb app plus native apps in the Apple App Store and Google Play.
- 50,000+ partsAcross a network of dealers, with nationwide shipping and local pickup.
- The engineTalkRev.ai, the technology company of my PartsNow partner, Manna Justin.
- Covered by the trade pressFleet Equipment, Trucks Parts Service, and Aftermarket News, the outlets my own industry reads.
Melissa is not behind the scenes.
My wife and business partner is in every one of these companies with me, and she is a co-headliner on every stage we take.
Melissa spent more than twenty years inside a Fortune-scale healthcare and automation company, where her most recent role contributed to more than $1.5 billion in revenue. Gartner published a 2017 white paper built around a toolkit she developed. She is a Consultant of the Year winner and an international best-selling author in her own right.
We book together by default. I bring the vision and the why. Melissa brings the execution and the how. If you want one of us solo, just ask.
Bios
Steve Fultz holds a PhD in counseling psychology, has run family companies for four decades, and builds AI agents inside them. Psychologist, operator, builder.
Steve Fultz, PhD, sits where three worlds rarely meet: strategy, people, and technology. He holds a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Tennessee, spent about 25 years on church staffs, and has roughly four decades of operating experience running family companies. He grew the family business from $6 million to more than $10 million, and now designs AI agents that handle repeatable work inside his own operations.
Melissa Huff Fultz brings more than 25 years as a sales executive, marketing professional, and entrepreneur. Inside a Fortune-scale healthcare and automation company, her most recent role contributed to more than $1.5 billion in revenue. She is a Consultant of the Year winner, a repeat member of the Circle of Excellence and President's Club, a national-conference speaker, and the international best-selling author of The Art of Alignment.
Steve and Melissa Fultz are the husband-and-wife team behind The Fultz Group, the Knoxville advisory firm they founded in 2015 under the banner "Where Wall Street Meets Main Street."
They are unusual among business advisors in that they still run the companies they teach from. Steve is a second-generation co-owner of a portfolio of East Tennessee businesses rooted in the fuel-tanker operation his father, Pat Fultz, started in 1964, and he grew the family business from $6 million to more than $10 million. Melissa spent more than twenty years inside a Fortune-scale healthcare and automation company, where her most recent role contributed to more than $1.5 billion in revenue, and Gartner published a 2017 white paper built around a toolkit she developed.
Together they are the authors of The Owner Shift and Family Business Facelift. Their work centers on a blunt conviction: if the business gets fixed but the marriage doesn't, nothing has actually been helped.
What I can talk about
These lean toward the psychology. If you want the tactical version, the other kits go there.
Why owners psychologically cannot let go
The Identity Trap. When a person and a company fuse, stepping back does not feel like delegation. It feels like disappearing. A psychologist's read on the most common reason succession fails.
The Mortality Trap
"I'll slow down when things slow down." What owners in their sixties are really avoiding, and why the conversation keeps getting postponed until it is had for them.
Three rooms nobody occupies at once
Strategy, people, and technology. Why advice from any one of the three keeps failing on the shop floor, and what changes when someone has lived in all three.
What 25 years on church staffs taught me about business
An unusual credential for a business strategist, and the most direct training in human systems I ever got.
Building an AI workforce inside a 1964 company
Not a thought experiment. What actually happened when I put AI agents to work alongside our people, and what the people thought about it.
The note cards my father kept for fifty years
How one man's handwritten judgment became a documented system, and why every owner is sitting on the same undocumented asset.
Suggested questions
Steal these, or ignore them entirely.
- You have a doctorate in counseling psychology and you run a trucking-adjacent business. How does that combination even happen?
- What do you see in a business owner that a normal consultant walks right past?
- You say owners fuse with their companies. What does that fusion actually look like from the outside?
- Why is "I'll slow down when things slow down" such a dangerous sentence?
- You spent 25 years on church staffs. What did that teach you that an MBA would not have?
- You built AI agents inside a company your father started in 1964. How did the people react?
- Your father kept note cards for fifty years. What was on them?
- What is the hardest thing you have personally had to let go of in your own business?
- You work with your wife. What does that require that people underestimate?
Press & appearances
Confronting Fear: A Deep Dive with Dr. Steve Fultz, PhD
A conversation on fear, courage, and the decisions owners avoid.
The Fultz Group Launches Initiative to Bridge the AI Gap for Gen X Business Owners
May 17, 2025
Family Business Facelift: A Revolutionary Approach for Family Businesses
May 30, 2025
From Family Business to Future-Ready: Lessons in Leadership
Interview by Martin Rowinski · June 19, 2025
Our launch announcement was syndicated to 500+ outlets, including NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX affiliates. Additional podcast appearances are being added. Email for a current list or a specific clip.
Credentials
- Ph.D., Counseling PsychologyUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Four booksThe Owner Shift (2026) · Family Business Facelift (2025) · More Than Just a Website (2015) · with Melissa's The Art of Alignment (2015). Two international best-sellers.
- Operating companiesPost Leasing & Sales · Knox Trailers · Post Onsite · PartsNow.ai
- Signature frameworksThe R.E.S.T. Method · The Five Traps · The Ownerless Business Ladder · The Owner's Almanac · The Marriage Board Meeting
Photos & assets
Right-click to save. Need print resolution or a different crop? Email us.
Where to send people
Four doors. Listeners pick whichever one fits where they are right now.
Get in touch
We answer our own email. Tell us the show, the format, and roughly when, and we will come back to you quickly.
steveandmelissa@thefultzgroup.com
- LocationKnoxville, East Tennessee. Available remote or in person.
- FormatSteve and Melissa appear together by default. Either can appear solo on request.
- Onlinestevefultzphd.com · thefultzgroup.com · theownershift.com · aiforfamilybusiness.com
- LinkedIn/in/stevefultzphd · /in/melissahufffultz