THE PERSON BEHIND THE SYSTEM
I didn't build PROPEL from theory.
I built it from a failure I couldn't stop thinking about.
Years ago I was brought in as lead generator and principal salesperson for one of the first community solar companies attempting to operate in New York City. The technology was real. The economics were compelling. The market needed it.
Not one deal closed.
Six months later the company was gone.
For a long time I carried that as personal failure. Eventually I understood what actually happened. The buyers were interested — but they couldn't say yes. Not to me. Not to each other. Not in the internal conversations I was never invited to.
We had marketing materials. We had a pitch. We had facts.
We had nothing designed for the conversation that happens after you leave the room.
That gap — between a compelling innovation and a buyer who can actually say yes — is what PROPEL was built to close.
THE APPROACH
Emotiva works with a focused number of cleantech founders at a time. Every engagement starts with a diagnosis — not a proposal. We don't build disconnected assets. We don't use hype to compensate for missing proof. We don't promise outcomes we can't substantiate.
What we can promise is precision. About where the commercial system is breaking down, what needs to be fixed first, and what a working commercialization system actually looks like for a company at your stage.
Your edge is not hype. Ours isn't either. It is judgment.
If you've invented something new but haven't invented an effective way to sell it, you have a problem — no matter how good the technology.
BACKGROUND
Kimberly Heismann, Emotiva's Founder, has spent 30 years at the intersection of communications, sustainability, and commercial strategy.
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UNDP — Sustainable Energy & Environment Division
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Pop Sustainability — Global NGO promoting sustainability
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Colorado Governor's Office — Policy communications
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National Park Service — Public interest communications
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Columbia University — Graduate study, public administration & sustainability
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CleanStart NYU/Urban Future Lab — Sector training
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Cleantech Open — Active mentor
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Climatebase Fellowship — Fellow
That institutional breadth is not decoration. It means we understand the worlds your buyers operate in — the regulatory pressures, the procurement complexity, the political risk — because we have worked inside them.
THE THESIS
"Climate innovation doesn't scale because it's impressive. It scales when it becomes believable — when the proof is organized, the narrative is clear, and the commercial system keeps moving after the founder leaves the room."
THE TEAM BEHIND THE WORK
Built with the climate community, for the climate community.
The PROPEL pilot is currently being delivered in partnership with a Climatebase Fellowship capstone team — a cross-functional group of climate-literate professionals spanning go-to-market strategy, positioning, research, proof design, sales enablement, and pipeline logic.
This is one way PROPEL is delivered, not the only way. The fellowship is a structured, time-bound engagement designed to test the system in a real client context and prove what's possible when the right expertise is working inside the right framework.
THE SYSTEM
If this thinking resonates —
the right first move is a conversation.
If this thinking resonates — the right first move is a conversation.