Sponsor testimonial
GE Solar and GE Vernova testimonial at FMA Summits
Speaker: Tim Magner, GE Solar, GE Vernova, based in Boston, Massachusetts.
GE Solar · GE Vernova
Segment: Solar, sustainability and distributed energy for municipalities and commercial customers.
Goal: Enter a new region, meet real customers and build meaningful conversations around solar and sustainability.
Tim Magner from GE Solar describes his first experience at FMA Summits as very different from the typical industry event. At other conferences he has attended there are usually many more vendors than customers, and buyers are often in and out without much time for real discussion. At FMA he saw the opposite pattern. Customers and potential customers engaged with GE Solar four to five times over a day and a half, with sincere and meaningful conversations about sustainability and solar projects.
The summit also helped GE Solar enter a region where the team was less established. They met municipal and commercial stakeholders from Chicago, Michigan and Wisconsin who were actively broadening their knowledge of sustainability and solar. Tim highlights the format as authentic and not transactional. Instead of quick exchanges of business cards, the focus was on understanding why people attended, what they wanted to learn and how GE Solar and GE Vernova could help. When there was not a direct fit, sponsors still pointed attendees to other partners at the event, which created additional co development opportunities across the ecosystem.
The summit also helped GE Solar enter a region where the team was less established. They met municipal and commercial stakeholders from Chicago, Michigan and Wisconsin who were actively broadening their knowledge of sustainability and solar. Tim highlights the format as authentic and not transactional. Instead of quick exchanges of business cards, the focus was on understanding why people attended, what they wanted to learn and how GE Solar and GE Vernova could help. When there was not a direct fit, sponsors still pointed attendees to other partners at the event, which created additional co development opportunities across the ecosystem.
Highlights from this sponsor experience
- Four to five quality touch points with customers and prospects over a day and a half.
- Exposure to municipalities and companies from Chicago, Michigan and Wisconsin that are exploring solar and sustainability.
- Boxed lunch meetings where attendees signed up to meet GE in advance and waited at the table to talk.
- Authentic, non transactional conversations focused on why attendees were there and how GE Solar could help.
- New partner connections that may lead to co development opportunities in the sustainability space.
Read full transcript
Tim Magner with GE Solar, based out of Boston, Massachusetts.
We are on day two here at FMA. It has been a really great experience. This is my first time attending this event and I have been to a few other similar type industry events, none that were FMA related, where the expectations were not that high and the experience was not that great.
What you commonly find with those events is that there are many more vendors than actual customers. The customers are not really there to spend quality time. They are in and out, maybe they do a quick talk and then leave.
This event has been really great in that we have seen customers and potential customers not once, but with probably four to five different touch points, and those have been sincere and meaningful.
This is also a region for our business that we are not as familiar with, so this was a perfect entry point into that region. We had a lot of folks from Chicago, Michigan and Wisconsin coming down, all very interested in broadening their knowledge of sustainability and solar specifically. I think we made some great connections there.
The format was very nice. We were here for a day and a half. There were a lot of great presentations, and then just the right amount of time to interact in a non pressure and sincere way.
The word that keeps coming to me is that it was authentic. At a lot of conferences it can feel more manufactured and transactional. Here it was not about trading business cards. It was really about answering questions, understanding why people were here and having sincere and honest engagement about how we can help them. If we could not help, no big deal. We might point them to another booth that could help.
There were also other great partners here where we made meaningful connections that might turn into co development opportunities that did not exist before.
One example that stands out is yesterday lunch. A few people had signed up to meet with us. We showed up to our GE lunch table and there were three to four people from different municipalities and companies waiting for us to arrive. That is very different from the normal commercial front end experience.
My colleagues and I sat down with them for about an hour and had great exchanges and dialogue around why they were here, what they wanted to know from us and how we could help. The boxed lunch sessions were a unique format.
The presentations were crisp. We were able to give a concise message about what we do without it feeling overly sales focused. There was also a good breadth of content. We recognize that we cover one slice of the sustainability spectrum and all the different facets of that spectrum were represented at some point in the program.
More sponsor testimonials
Upcoming summit
Northeast Critical Infrastructure and Optimization Summit
Marriott at Glenpointe, Teaneck, New Jersey near New York City
May 28-29, 2026
More than 170 mission critical buyers, 80 plus sponsor video testimonials and a guaranteed meetings format.
Marriott at Glenpointe, Teaneck, New Jersey near New York City
May 28-29, 2026
More than 170 mission critical buyers, 80 plus sponsor video testimonials and a guaranteed meetings format.
Talk about sponsoring FMA Summits
Joe Piazza
Vice President of Partnerships
FMA Summits
Phone: (646) 223-1861
Website: www.fmasummits.com
Email: info@fmasummits.com
Vice President of Partnerships
FMA Summits
Phone: (646) 223-1861
Website: www.fmasummits.com
Email: info@fmasummits.com
FMA Summits