What’s your story, George Thompson?
The stories behind climate tech founders
This year, we’re sharing a series of posts profiling founders of Climate Connection’s tech community, asking them to share their journeys, inspirations, and insights into how they got to where they are today.
Today, meet George Thompson – the founder and CEO who shared the story of GT Wings at February’s Climate Tech Time. GT Wings brings a solution that solves one of climate’s hardest problems: decarbonising shipping. They tackle this by giving cargo ships a sail to utilise the power of wind. It’s a fascinating piece of hardtech that we loved digging deeper into.
Here’s George’s story.
How did your career begin?
I grew up sailing and was always fascinated by the intersection of performance, engineering and the ocean. That led me to study yacht and small-craft design before landing an internship with the Land Rover BAR America’s Cup team. From there I moved into yacht design and high-performance marine engineering, which eventually connected me with the emerging world of wind propulsion for commercial shipping. It felt like the perfect combination of my background in sailing and a chance to work on something with genuine global impact.
How have you handled the challenge of proving a new technology in a conservative industry where operators need clear commercial returns?
Shipping is naturally conservative because the stakes are high; operators need technologies that are reliable, safe and commercially viable. We’ve always approached that reality head-on. Rather than just talking about sustainability, we focused on demonstrating real fuel savings, operational practicality and strong engineering fundamentals. We’ve spent a huge amount of time validating performance through simulations, testing and now real-world operation. Ultimately, shipowners care about economics as much as they do about emissions, so proving commercial value has always been central to our strategy.
What have been the toughest challenges along the way?
Fundraising, without question. Deep-tech climate companies are expensive to build, especially in hardware-heavy industries like maritime. You need patient investors who understand that creating meaningful industrial technology takes time, persistence and capital. Building the technology is one challenge, but building belief around the vision can sometimes be even harder in the early days.
Have you ever felt like giving up?
No. There have definitely been difficult moments and periods of pressure, but I’ve never wanted to stop. When you genuinely believe in the product and the opportunity, you keep moving forward.
What has kept you going?
The realisation that we have a genuinely strong product and a very talented team around it. Once you have those foundations, everything else becomes solvable. I also genuinely enjoy the challenge; building a company in a completely new market is difficult, but it’s also incredibly exciting and rewarding.
What advice would you give to anyone else looking to build a climate tech startup today?
Just get started. Take the risk and jump in. The hardest part is usually convincing yourself that you’re ready; most people wait too long for the “perfect moment” or perfect plan. In reality, you learn by doing. Once you begin, momentum builds surprisingly quickly.
Can you tell us a story about how this community or an unexpected connection helped propel you to where you are now?
One of the biggest turning points for us was securing early grant funding through Innovate UK, which funded our first feasibility study and helped turn the concept into a real company. There were a number of people involved in supporting those early applications, including individuals from UK research and technology organisations who helped shape strong collaborative bids. Since then, additional grant programmes have continued to play an important role in helping us develop and scale the technology.
We were also fortunate to have early belief from a UK-owned shipping company willing to support a demonstrator project. That early trust gave us the opportunity to prove the technology in the real world and build momentum from there.
So there’s a glimpse into one of the founders of our Climate Connection community – a community built around the strategic magic of connection and intentional networking.
Interested in seeing yourself or another founder onstage?
We’re always looking for new startups and scale-ups to tell amazing stories. You can fill out our speaker nomination form here.
