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Van Tucker started out in the finance industry. She started and lead a national entertainment industry team for Bank of America. In her 30 years of work in banking, Tucker often found herself helping creative industry professionals build business structures around their products and ideas. When she left banking in 2008, she started a business around her previous work with creative professionals. Tucker recognized that Nashville needed more infrastructure to support its growing fashion industry.
“We all need to be more in touch with our passion. There are many places in our world where we’ve disconnected from passion,” Tucker says.
“That’s why I’m building a business around helping creative people build better businesses, because I think we need more people who are connected with their passion.”
One year, Van Tucker met Amanda Valentine, a fashion designer from the show Project Runway, at the Nashville Fashion Week and decided to help her launch her fashion brand. She helped Amanda start her own clothing line, which Valentine produces in Nashville.
Tucker is now the CEO of the Nashville Fashion Alliance (NFA) which is a community driven and industry focused trade organization launched in May 2015. The NFA’s mission is to “build sustainable and globally recognized fashion industry with a focus on advocacy, economic development, resources and education.” The NFA recognized that with every dollar spent with a local brand, 52 cents stays in the local economy versus only 13 cents with a national fashion brand. The NFA advocates their regional fashion business and wants to incubate fashion brands and allow them to emerge and stand tall on the global stage.
She urges local Nashvillians to support local brands because this has an enormous impact on the success and future of this industry.
