JULIA POLK, a highly regarded business advisor based in Nashville, says her bootstrapped startup, ClimateWiser LLC, is moving stepwise through a process that will allow it to help sustainability leaders across the Southeast and beyond "to turn ideas into impact."

ClimateWiser currently provides open access to an introductory layer of its Green Pages directory of 463 climate stakeholders drawn from a pool of roughly 1,700 identified by Polk and student interns. Numerous additional layers of Green Pages data will debut in stages.

While the mission and content of Green Pages are heavily focused on the 10 states that traditionally define the Southeast, Green Pages includes registrants and resources based in at least 14 additional states with sector entrants who have current or prospective southeastern ties.

Interviewed by VNC, Polk said she senses that many, if not most of the groups she has had indexed within Green Pages "just don't seem to know each other."

Four months ago, as she began moving Green Pages out of stealth mode, the founder told her LinkedIn followers: "Sustainability = Smart Business: I launched ClimateWiser to build a connected ecosystem that will solve the challenges posed by a changing climate. Supporting planetary health isn't just morally right. Today’s solutions are cheaper, faster, and healthier for our future."

Among other initiatives, a week ago Polk curated and moderated a 3686 Festival "pop-up" discussion on "Exploring Environmental Resilience."

Commentary -- often riveting -- was provided by her panelists:

• Atlanta-based Miguel Granier, managing director of the Cox Cleantech Accelerator;
• Nashville-based experts Matt Kisber, chairman and cofounder of Silicon Ranch Corporation;
• Sustainable medicine advocate Reed Omary MD, co-founder and CEO of Greenwell Project; 
• Lacie Thorne, co-founder of Threadline, which offers value-generating fashion resale tech. 

Next up, on Sept. 21-28, she'll participate in ClimateWeek NYC, where she is eager to connect with advocates and experts she already knows, as well as with like-minded others.

VISION

Bill Frist MD

Asked by VNC this morning for comment on Polk's mission, Bill Frist MD -- Global Board Chair of The Nature Conservancy, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and Founding Partner of Frist Cressey Ventures -- said:

"ClimateWiser is a visionary initiative dedicated to advancing environmental sustainability, resilience, and planetary health across the Southeast. With the creation of the Green Pages, ClimateWiser fosters collaboration and empowers a thriving ecosystem, connecting partners, capital, and innovators to drive meaningful change." 

Polk told VNC she sees Green Pages' immediate role as that of making stakeholders more visible to one another, thereby potentially setting into motion flows of connections, sector knowledge, talent and possibly capital.

With its data cornerstone now in-place, Polk said her priorities include simultaneously sampling Green Pages subscribers' opinions; recruiting more ClimateWiser team members; refining her strategy and master business plan; and, define near-term insight-generating tech enhancements for Green Pages users.

In Nashville and elsewhere, Polk is scouting in earnest for teammates who can help grow registrations, content, AI-insight capacity and stakeholder engagement for Green Pages -- as well as someone with a "chief of staff" mindset to help integrate operations and assist her in developing a comprehensive business plan.

Asked how she has funded her efforts thus far, she replied immediately with humor: "I am the wallet."

That will change, she says, as ClimateWiser moves through what she views as a "5- to 10-step" procession toward self-sustaining status.

She added that, while startup ClimateWiser was formed as a traditional for-profit LLC, she has not ruled-out registering as a nonprofit or as a Tennessee for-profit benefit corporation (FPBC).

Asked whether ClimateWiser might start a fund or accelerator, Polk said emphatically she has no plans to do either, given that Green Pages already contains dozens of climate-oriented VCs -- and, the environment for newer climate funds is challenging.

Asked about outside advisors for ClimateWiser, Polk said that, at this early stage, she confers informally with seasoned attorneys and financial experts in her long-standing professional network. In recruiting student interns, she has been assisted by staff of BuildinSE, which she considers a business ally.

GALBREATH

Dodd Galbreath

For comment on Polk's efforts, VNC reached out last week to Institute of Sustainable Practice Director and Associate Professor Dodd Galbreath MS, at Lipscomb University in Nashville.

Galbreath said of Green Pages, "I do think it's a worthy exercise."

He explained that, although such efforts are inherently challenging, it is also true that by simply helping potential sustainability partners find each other, Green Pages could prove very meaningful.

Beyond that, Galbreath said he has found that mobilizing potential partners toward collaboration in such contexts as climate technology, markets, policies or regulations is inevitably very difficult.

Galbreath observed that networks or ecosystems organize around numerous nodes of focal-points in ecosystems that are continually reshaping themselves -- rising, merging, dissipating and sometimes re-forming.

The professor added that ecosystem members are often driven to connect, ally and adhere not simply by reason of shared knowledge and affinity, but, for example, because of a profound and shared sense of "desperation" with respect to addressing crucial, even existential issues.

Particularly in precarious times, the bond formed among opponents who realize they share a common sense of desperation can lead to bona fide and productive debate and even issue-resolution.

Galbreath cited American Patriots' revolution against British rule as having been ignited by a desperation so pervasive that it led even some who preferred British rule to join American secessionists.

Galbreath also said that "truth-grounding" has often proven to be a vital tool in debate and in de-escalating conflict. 

Whereas these days many debates degenerate into ad hominem name-calling, truth-grounding calls for all parties to provide supportive details and evidence that demonstrate both the utility and veracity of their statements.

Such discipline can reduce ill will that is often driven by prejudice within and among all parties, VNC research on this topic suggests.

In the course of completing this story today, we received what struck us as reinforcement of Galbreath's abovementioned point about the importance of simply helping stakeholders connect via Green Pages.

Hours after VNC's exchange this morning with Dr. Frist and prior to publication of this story, VNC shared Frist's comments with Polk, as a courtesy.

A surprised and delighted Polk then told us that, while at a conference they both attended months ago, she had a chance to share with Dr. Frist the fact that, after intensely studying Climate issues, she was seriously considering becoming very personally active in the sector.

She said his response that day was so encouraging that she realized she had truly reached a true "turning point" in her resolve to contribute toward resolution of Climate challenges.

She added that, notwithstanding the fact that she has previously had a very substantial and satisfying career in finance and related fields, she had never previously felt "called" to a particular mission, until she answered the call of Climate.

ORIGINS

On May 1 of this year, Polk was inducted to the Smart Business Hall of Fame during the annual Nashville Dealmakers Conference. 

Until she registered ClimateWiser in Tennessee this past January, Polk founded and operated New Ventures Consulting LLC for 11 years.

While leading New Ventures, she served as a strategic operating advisor to senior leadership teams, private equity and venture funds and to board of directors in early and mid-stage companies looking to scale, with emphasis on climate solutions and women's healthcare solutions.

Earlier, Polk was CFO of Nashville-based startup Change Healthcare, which was eventually backed by private equity and sold to Emdeon, which adopted the Change Healthcare brand -- before selling in 2022 to Optum.

She was also once a vice president of Solidus Company, and while in that role also worked with the Nashville Technology Council to form the former Nashville Angel Network, the predecessor of the Nashville Capital Network.

She remains a co-founder and director of Nashville-based Decode Health, which offers a precision-medicine analytics platform for drug discovery and disease monitoring. "Decode has convened a broad ecosystem of collaborators in industry-leading pharmaceutical, diagnostic and technology companies to accelerate precision medicine," according to her LinkedIn.

Polk is also a long-tenured member of the board of directors of Tennessee Technology Development Corporation dba Launch Tennessee; a former Nashville Entrepreneur Center mentor and entrepreneur in residence; and, is currently a director and advisor to Knoxville-based Shep Digital Solutions, which delivers digital-shopper marketing solutions.

From 1988-1992, Polk served as CFO of Corporate Childcare Development -- alongside Founders Marguerite Sallee, former Tennessee Gov. and U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander and producer-actor Bob Keeshan.

That firm in 1997 changed its name to Corporate Family Solutions (CFS) ahead of its initial IPO. Subsequently, CFS was taken private by Bain Capital, and soon merged with Massachusetts-based Bright Horizons, a former competitor. Today, NYSE:BFAM, a multinational, has a nearly $6.5BN market cap.

Polk, 64, earned her bachelor's in mathematics at Vanderbilt University in 1983. She began her financial career as a Morgan Stanley analyst.

She grew up in Little Rock, has two adult daughters, and resides in Davidson County. VNC

.last edited 1544 16 September 2025