Careers worth having. Teams worth trusting.
I'm Steve Morrell, an Irish customer experience leader based in Helsinki. I help people grow their careers without burning out, and help teams communicate clearly enough to look after their customers and each other.
Why talk to Steve?
I've spent more than two decades in tech, most of it in the rooms where customers meet the product: support desks, onboarding calls, escalations and renewals. Along the way I learned that the best teams are the ones who can speak up, laugh together and say plainly what they mean.
Built on real leadership
Today I lead customer support, success, onboarding and sales as Head of Customer Experience at Refined. Coaching and mentoring are the part of the job I'd keep if you took everything else away.
Why this site exists
A place to share what I'm learning, and to start conversations with people who want help with their career, their communication or their team.
Clear words, honest teams and customers who feel looked after. That's the thread running through everything here.
Ways to work together
I'm building my coaching practice step by step, on top of years of mentoring my own teams. There's nothing to book or buy online. Every conversation starts with a short message.
Mentoring Conversations
- Your next career step, or a change of direction
- Stepping into your first leadership role
- Confidence at work and in the room
- Workload, energy and avoiding burnout
Talks & Workshops
- Clear communication at work
- Coaching and mentoring in practice
- Confidence in the workplace
- Humour, trust and speaking up
A familiar face in Helsinki's customer community
I've spent years helping support and success people find each other, swap ideas and grow together. If you're organising something in that world, I'd love to hear about it.
Support from HEL
Co-founded a community where Helsinki support professionals meet every few weeks to share, learn and grow.
Slush volunteer lead
Offline Customer Success Group Lead at Slush since 2023.
Customer Success Nordics
A regular for four years, and a speaker at a CS Nordics event hosted at Refined.
Coaching for people who don't usually get coached
Some of the most rewarding work I've done has been outside the org chart: running company sessions on coaching, mentoring and confidence, coaching people from under-represented groups, and talking to students about careers in tech.
If you're early in your career, changing direction, or simply feel stuck, you don't need a big budget or a big title to get in touch.
Latest from the blog
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Preview tiles. The live site pulls Steve's latest Instagram posts in automatically.
Who I am
I'm a long-standing technology professional, originally from Ireland and now living in Helsinki, Finland.
I studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, then took an MPhil in Speech Recognition at the University of Cambridge. I stayed in Cambridge for most of my career, building software, supporting customers and eventually leading global support teams.
My main interest outside the day job is personal development and coaching.
I care about careers that are rewarding without costing people their health, and about workplaces where people can laugh, speak honestly and do good work. This site is where I share what I'm learning about all of that, plus the odd post about photography, writing and life in the Nordics.
What I believe
Careers shouldn't cost your health
Ambition and wellbeing can live together. The right habits and the right support make the difference.
Teams that laugh, trust
A team that's comfortable with humour is also comfortable telling you when something is wrong.
How I work
I publish things when they're useful rather than waiting until they're perfect, and I'd rather hear your feedback early than polish in private.
The same goes for coaching. We start with a real conversation about where you are, then work on what will actually move you forward.
Clear words. Honest teams. Customers who feel looked after.
What I do
Three things I'm always happy to talk about.
Coaching
Helping people get clear on their next step, build confidence and grow as leaders, drawing on years of mentoring my own teams through change.
Communication
A background in technical writing and a habit of writing fiction taught me that simple language almost always wins.
Operations
Support and success operations that scale: SLAs, KPIs, health scores, migrations and the processes that keep customers happy.
My coaching journey
I'm an aspiring coach, and I'd rather share the journey as I go than wait until it's finished. Here's where it started and where it's heading.
Coaching inside the day job
Mentoring my teams through a period of change, running company sessions on coaching, mentoring and confidence, and coaching people from under-represented groups.
The Squiggly Careers skills sprint
Twenty days on twenty career skills, from strategic thinking to storytelling. I wrote about every one and finished with 8,035 words.
Read the final dayFinding my voice
Storytelling never came naturally to me at work, so I started practising: reading aloud around the flat and booking time in a recording studio to learn the vocal booth.
My first talk
After four years in the audience at Customer Success Nordics, I gave my first presentation, on why clear language beats clever language.
Read about the talkVoice coaching with Free Your Voice Hub
Working with a vocal coach to build the presence and confidence I want to help other people find.
Visit Free Your Voice HubBuilding a coaching practice
Starting mentoring conversations with people outside my own teams, and writing up what I learn along the way on the blog.
Be one of the firstI'm not a certified coach yet. What I bring today is 25 years of leading, mentoring and listening in customer-facing tech teams.
25 years close to the customer
From writing lab-automation software to leading customer experience for a global SaaS company, every role has put me a little closer to the people using the product.
Education
- MPhil, Speech Recognition University of Cambridge
- Bachelor's, Electrical & Electronic Engineering Trinity College Dublin
Learning
- Customer Success Certified: Core Customer Success Collective
- Customer Advocacy Strategic Frameworks Customer Success Collective
- AI for Customer Success Customer Success Collective
- Squiggly Careers Skills Sprint Squiggly Careers
Head of Customer Experience, Refined
Extended leadership team. Leading support, success, onboarding and sales globally, and developing a new layer of team leads.
Support Manager, then Head of Support, Refined
Led a team of support engineers from seven nationalities and ran company sessions on coaching, mentoring and confidence.
Co-founder, Support from HEL
A community for Helsinki's support professionals, hosted at a different member's office each time.
aPriori Technologies
From support engineer to Director, Customer Support and Operations, leading global support, deployment and cloud teams.
Support Engineer, Siemens PLM Software
Supporting the CAD components behind some of the world's best-known design tools, and writing the manuals and training.
Software & Sales Engineer, The Technology Partnership
Building control software for pharmaceutical screening labs, then moving into customer support and pre-sales.
Away from work
The things that keep me curious.
Mentoring Conversations
- Your next career step, or a change of direction
- Stepping into your first leadership role
- Confidence at work and in the room
- Workload, energy and avoiding burnout
Talks & Workshops
- Clear communication at work
- Coaching and mentoring in practice
- Confidence in the workplace
- Humour, trust and speaking up
How it works
Simple and personal, with no online booking.
Send an enquiry
Tell me a little about where you are and what you'd like help with.
Have a first chat
A relaxed conversation to see if we're a good fit.
Agree a focus
We pick the few things that matter most and park the rest.
Work on it together
Regular sessions with honest feedback and practical next steps.
Topics we can work on
Drawn from the 20-day Squiggly Careers skills sprint I wrote about on the blog.
Frequently asked questions
Can I book a session online?
No. Every conversation starts with the enquiry form, and I'll get back to you personally.
Are you a certified coach?
Not yet. I'm an aspiring coach building my practice step by step, and I write about that journey on the blog. What I bring today is 25 years of leading and mentoring people in customer-facing tech teams.
Do I need to work in tech?
No. Most of my experience is in software and customer-facing teams, but career growth, confidence and clear communication matter everywhere.
Is coaching online or in person?
Either. Sessions can run online wherever you are, or in person if you're in Helsinki.
How much does it cost?
Let's talk about what you need first. Send an enquiry and we'll agree how we'll work together before anything starts.
Can you speak to my team or event?
Yes. See the speaking page for topics, then send an enquiry with a few details about the audience.
Not sure where to start?
That's normal. Send a few lines about what's on your mind and we'll work out the rest together.
Send Me a MessageThe Road to Hell Is Paved with Adverbs
- Why simple language beats elaborate language
- What fiction writing teaches business writing
- Spotting the words that hide unfinished thinking
Coaching & Mentoring at Work
- Building a coaching habit in busy teams
- Mentoring people through change
- Confidence in the workplace
What a Restaurant Taught Me About Support
- Learning from outside your industry
- Giving every team a stake in the customer
- Funding the teams customers actually meet
Planning an event? Get in touch.
Have a question? Get in touch.
There's no calendar to book or payment to make. Send a few lines about what you're working on and I'll come back to you to talk it through.