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Stephen Morse, at right, along with his family, his wife, calligraphist Ritsuko, their family, and some of Ritsuko’s Tougei pottery. Courtesy images.

After 25 years in technology sector in Silicon Valley and for tech giants Seibel Systems and Salesforce in Asia, Homestead Valley resident Stephen Morse came to a sharp realization over the past year.

“I realized I was working longer and harder and I wasn’t serving a higher purpose, to be in service of the well being of people and the planet,” Morse says. “Most of the work I’d done in my career was related to profit-driven capitalism, and I wanted to have the last third of my working career be of service to people – that really motivates me.”

To do just that, Morse, a San Rafael native and graduate of Marin Country Day School and Marin Academy, launched The Kenja Project, a pair of ventures that build on his background and complement one another and seek to reach “both the mind and the heart,” Morse says.

One piece is the SE Leadership Institute (SELI), which leans on Morse’s experience in building Sales Engineering teams, ranging from startups to large teams that span multiple hundred SEs, a wide range of customer segments and geographies. SELI offers “a unique and highly effective bootcamp training for Sales Engineering leaders, launched under the market-leading SaaSy Sales Management platform,” Morse says. “I leverage previous experiences to build highly performant, engaged, and retained teams that achieve consistent results through proven programs, practices, and discipline.”

That venture also seeks to build on his work as a teacher in training at the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI), a Google-born program to help individuals or businesses achieve more mindful focus, resilience, and emotional intelligence. “This is secular mindfulness in emotional intelligence,” he says.

To that end, Morse is set to join Jonathan Reynolds’ team at Mindful Life, Mindful Work, which offers “business coaching, executive career coaching, mindfulness consulting, corporate mindfulness trainings, and leadership development tools to individuals and organizations.”

While those efforts reach the mind, Morse is drawing on his familial connections to reach the heart. His Japanese wife Ritsuko creates tougei pottery, and will be apprenticing with a master artist this summer in Japan, bringing the style to the U.S. “but also with a personal touch for people who want to make these unique, beautiful pieces their own,” Morse says.

The 411: MORE INFO on the Kenja Project and the SE Leadership Institute.

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