Fuel50 Enters Its Next Chapter as Acquisition by Phoenix Education Partners Closes

Co-founder Jo Mills becomes CEO as Anne Fulton steps down; Fuel50 continues as a distinct business under its own brand

LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA, UNITED STATES, October 1, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Fuel50, Inc. the award-winning Workforce Transformation Platform, today announced the completion of its acquisition by Phoenix Education Partners, Inc. (NYSE: PXED). The closing marks the beginning of a new chapter for the company and its mission to help organizations understand, develop and mobilize the capability of their people.

With the closing of the transaction, Fuel50 Co-founder Anne Fulton has stepped down from her role as Chief Executive Officer, and Co-founder and President Jo Mills has assumed leadership of Fuel50 as CEO.

Fuel50 will continue to operate under its own brand as a distinct business within Phoenix Education Partners, serving its global enterprise customers and advancing its workforce intelligence, skills, talent mobility and workforce transformation capabilities.

“I am enormously proud of what our team has built and of the customers, partners, investors and industry leaders who believed in this mission alongside us,” said Anne Fulton, co-founder of Fuel50. “Phoenix Education Partners brings the scale, reach and commitment to workforce development that can take this vision much further. This is the right moment for Fuel50 to begin its next chapter — and for me to step away from executive leadership knowing the company, its people and its mission have an exciting future ahead.”

Fuel50 Executive Chairman and veteran technology entrepreneur Andrew “Flip” Filipowski reflected on Fulton’s contribution to the company and the wider technology industry.

“Great founders don’t simply build products — they see shifts in the world before they become obvious and build companies around those convictions,” said Filipowski. “Anne has done that repeatedly. She saw early that careers needed to become more employee-driven, that skills would become the currency of workforce decisions, and now that AI requires us to understand work at the level of tasks and human contribution. She has built a company with a genuine point of view about the future of people and work. Joining Phoenix Education Partners provides Fuel50 with an extraordinary platform from which to take that thinking forward. Anne leaves an enduring legacy in Fuel50, but I suspect her contribution to this industry is far from finished.”

The acquisition brings together Fuel50’s workforce intelligence and transformation capabilities with Phoenix Education Partners’ focus on education, skills and workforce development. The organizations see an opportunity to more deeply connect intelligence about how work is changing with the skills, development and career pathways people need to remain relevant and thrive in an AI-enabled economy.

Jo Mills, co-founder and CEO of Fuel50, said Fuel50’s next phase will build on the principles that have guided the company from its beginnings.

“Anne and I built Fuel50 around a deeply shared belief in human potential and the importance of giving people greater agency over their working lives,” said Mills. “The best way we can honor that founding vision is to keep evolving it. As we begin this next chapter with Phoenix Education Partners, I’m excited to lead Fuel50 forward with our team, customers and partners. Together, we can help organizations make better choices about people, capability and work as AI reshapes the workforce.”

About Fuel50
Fuel50 is the Workforce Transformation Platform [BC4.1]that helps enterprises understand, activate and evolve their talent from the inside out. Purpose-built for workforce transformation, Fuel50 provides the intelligence to see workforce capability, gaps, aspirations and internal potential — and the activation system to move employees into the roles, projects, learning, mentoring and career pathways the business needs next. With Fuel50, organizations can reinvent, redeploy, retain and reactivate talent at scale, reducing dependency on external hiring and disruptive restructuring while keeping the people who make transformation possible. Fuel50 partners with leading enterprises to build more agile, resilient and future-ready workforces. For more information, visit fuel50.com.

About Phoenix Education Partners
Phoenix Education Partners, Inc. is the parent company of The University of Phoenix, Inc., a pioneer in online education for working adults. Founded in 1976, University of Phoenix provides access to higher education opportunities that enable students to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve their professional goals, improve the performance of their organizations and provide leadership and service to their communities. For more information, visit phoenixeducationpartners.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release are forward-looking statements.

These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our results to vary from expectations include, but are not limited to: our ability to successfully integrate Fuel50 and realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition; unexpected costs, charges or expenses resulting from the acquisition; the potential impact of the announcement or consummation of the acquisition on relationships with third parties, including customers, employees, and business partners; and other risk factors identified in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K.

These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties. Given these uncertainties, undue reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this press release and, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or review publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this press release. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause our views to change. This press release should be read completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

Ashley Levesque
Fuel50
marketing@fuel50.com
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