Episode #63
When God Asks You to Leave Something Good with Virginie Helias
When God Asks You to Leave Something Good with Virginie Helias What do you do when God asks you to leave something you still love? In this episode, I sit down with Virginie Helias—former Chief Sustainability Officer at Procter & Gamble—for a deeply personal conversation about surrender, obedience, identity, and what it looks like to trust God with the next chapter of your career. Virginie spent more than 38 years at P&G, working across some of the company’s largest global brands before helping establish sustainability as a core business priority and becoming P&G’s first Chief Sustainability Officer. But this conversation isn’t simply about an impressive corporate career. Virginie shares how her faith moved from something cultural and familiar to the true foundation of her life and leadership. She talks honestly about learning to loosen her grip on the steering wheel, stop asking God merely to bless her plans, and begin listening for where He was actually leading. That surrender didn’t diminish her career. It brought her work, passion, mission, and calling into deeper alignment. Virginie also takes us inside her decision to retire from a role she loved—not because something was wrong, but because she sensed the season was complete. She shares how she discerned that decision, what it meant to leave well, and how she is learning to carry her identity forward without being defined by a title. If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s time to leave something good, wrestled with who you are apart from your work, or struggled to trust God without seeing the entire path ahead—this episode is for you. What We Talk About ● How Virginie’s faith moved from cultural tradition to a personal relationship with God ● The difference between asking God to bless your plans and genuinely surrendering them ● Why surrender brought greater alignment and growth—not a smaller career ● How Virginie helped make sustainability a core business strategy at P&G ● The role stewardship played in her approach to leadership and sustainability ● How to recognize when a good season may still be complete ● Why Virginie viewed retirement as an act of obedience rather than rejection ● What it looks like to leave a role generously and well ● How to navigate identity when a meaningful title or career chapter ends ● How God often gives us only enough clarity for the next step ● The unexpected joy, coaching work, leadership development, and poetry emerging in Virginie’s next chapter Key Takeaways 1. Surrender brings alignment—not diminishment. Virginie once feared that fully surrendering her career to God might mean giving up the work, influence, or opportunities she valued. Instead, surrender allowed her passion, mission, vocation, and work to come together more fully. God’s direction did not make her career smaller. It made it more aligned. 2. Obedience sometimes means leaving something good. Virginie didn’t leave P&G because the role was wrong, the work had become miserable, or something had fallen apart. She left because she sensed the season was complete. God may invite us forward while much of what we are leaving is still deeply good. 3. You don’t need the full map to take the next step. God often gives us enough clarity and strength to move toward the next hurdle—not a detailed view of the entire journey. Trust grows as we act on what He has already shown us and allow Him to reveal the next step in His timing. Resources & Links Connect with Virginie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginiehelias/ Get Ann’s book, Faith at Work: A Practical Guide to Aligning Your Career with Who God Created You to Be : https://a.co/d/0fJTMHI9 ️ Listen to Dennis Beauséjour’s Faith Driven Leader episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/31dNZfThXDqO07TcaBAgiy?si=XogqpbF8S1acieStExydvw
