Laurel Colless was born in Australia, grew up in New Zealand, and spent much of her early career in Japan focused on Business Communications and Journalism. In 2000, she joined the communications team at the Nokia head office in Finland. As a director of financial communications, she expanded her role to include metrics development and reporting on Nokia's social and environmental performance. In 2003, working with corporate responsibility issue owners across the company, Laurel pioneered and produced Nokia's first integrated sustainability report. She continued to develop the document and the processes and practices behind it until she left Nokia in April 2007.

During her time at Nokia, she also took a lead communications role in the implementation in 25 countries of the company's youth life-skills program in partnership with the International Youth Foundation. She was also actively involved in the pilot implementation of Nokia's unique tri-sector cooperation delivering multimedia education materials to schools in the Philippines using mobile technology. The partnership, led by Nokia, includes Pearson, International Youth Foundation and the United Nations Development Program.