Rebecca Vermeulen knew, for about a year before she did anything about it, that something needed to shift. Not her career. Not her direction. Something quieter and harder to name than that. She was a vice president at Genentech, a pharmacist by training, someone who had spent over thirty years in global healthcare leading teams across continents, guiding organizations through crisis, and building her identity, as most of us do, around what she could accomplish and how well she could lead.
And then she started asking herself an honest question. How much of this is about impact, and how much of it is about me?
What followed was a sabbatical she had delayed for a full year, six weeks she used not to rest but to reflect. To sit with the thing she calls the success addiction. To ask what it would mean to lead from the middle instead of the front. To watch her team move forward without her, and feel pride instead of panic. This conversation is about what she found in that space. And what changed because of it.
Key Takeaways
- The success addiction is real. The more we achieve, the higher the goalposts move, and the harder we work to reach them. Recognizing this pattern is the first step toward leading for a different reason.
- Sabbaticals are offered more than they are taken. The fear that the team will not cope, or that stepping back means becoming irrelevant, keeps most leaders from using the time that is already theirs. Rebecca was a year late. The team was fine.
- The inner voice does not stop. If you ignore the signal long enough, it gets louder. Rebecca describes this as a spiritual undercurrent: a pull toward a path that keeps reasserting itself until you follow it.
- Stepping back is not stepping out. The shift Rebecca describes is from leading from the front to sitting in the sea with people. Still present. Still contributing. But no longer directing from the front.
- The power of a pause is a practice, not a one-time decision. Rebecca catches herself moving into reactive leadership every week and names it as the ongoing work. It requires grace with yourself and often an accountability partner or coach.
- Legacy is what carries on without you. For Rebecca, the test of her legacy is whether the people she has touched and the work she has shaped continues and compounds after she is no longer in the room.
- From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks. Rebecca’s book recommendation for anyone in the second half of their career asking what meaningful contribution looks like from here.
Rebecca Vermeulen knew, for about a year before she did anything about it, that something needed to shift.
Not her career. She loves her work. She is a vice president at Genentech, a pharmacist by training, and someone who has spent over thirty years in global healthcare leading teams across continents, guiding organizations through crisis, and working in direct partnership with patients in the development of medicines. She is exactly where she wants to be.
But something quieter than a career change was asking for attention. An inner voice she describes as a pull, an undercurrent, something that had been building for a while. And the longer she put it off, the louder it got.
She decided to take her sabbatical.
The Year She Waited
Genentech offers its employees six weeks of sabbatical every six years. It is a generous and deliberate offering. Rebecca had been eligible for a full year before she used it.
The reasons were familiar to anyone who has ever considered stepping back. It is never a good time. The team is in the middle of something significant. What if things fall apart without me? What if I come back to find I am no longer relevant?
And underneath all of that, something more honest: the thing she names in this conversation with a clarity that is rare in a senior leader.
“In order to achieve what’s really important to me, I had to kick a success addiction.” — Rebecca Vermeulen
And it is the kind of honesty that makes this conversation matter.
What the Sabbatical Was Actually For
The first weeks were decompression. Time with her daughter before she returned to college. A beach. A book. From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks, which she recommends to anyone in the second half of their career, asking what meaningful contribution looks like from here.
And then the journaling. The structured thought. The sitting with an honest question she had been circling for years.
How much of this is about impact, and how much of it is about me?
Because for Rebecca, the drive had never been selfish. She had always wanted to help and lift others. She had known that since she was in high school, writing on a folded piece of paper what she wanted to be when she grew up. But drive and ego are not opposites. They can coexist, quietly, for a long time before you examine the space between them.
What the sabbatical gave her was the space to examine it.
Standing in the Sea
While Rebecca was away, she kept a light eye on what was happening inside her team. Not directing. Not commenting. Just watching.
Her team was navigating a significant change in direction. She was there is she was needed. Instead, she watched with what she describes as joy: her group leaders stepping up, having conversations, thinking through the future without waiting for her guidance. The work was happening. And it was happening because she had stepped back, not in spite of it.
That observation changed something.
“My pride and joy comes from watching others shine, not from what I’ve personally accomplished for myself.” — Rebecca Vermeulen
She describes her leadership now not as leading from the front but as sitting with people. Still present. Still contributing wisdom, removing barriers, and asking questions. But not directing. Not needing to be the one whose name is on the outcome.
The Ongoing Work
Rebecca is careful not to make this sound like a transformation that arrived and settled. She is honest about what it actually is: a practice. Something she catches herself getting wrong every single week.
“It is work and it is grace.” — Rebecca Vermeulen
She has invested in an Enneagram coach. She knows her triggers and her reactive patterns. She talks openly with her team about this shift in her leadership approach. And she uses the power of a pause, a phrase she returns to throughout the conversation, as a practical tool: the deliberate moment of stopping to ask whether the urge to step in and lead is really necessary, or whether it is ego speaking.
Sometimes it is necessary. But often, the answer is: sit back. Watch what happens. Trust them.
What She Wants to Leave
When Sabine asked about legacy, Rebecca’s answer was immediate and exact.
Have I made people better? Has the work I helped shape continued and compounded beyond me? Have I opened space for good to happen that would not have happened otherwise?
“If one drop in the big water of life that I’ve made that better and there’s been a ripple effect that has had a lasting impact, then that’s my legacy to leave a lasting ripple on the world.” — Rebecca Vermeulen
That is the shift Season 2 is about. Not the leader whose name is on the outcome. The one who paved the path for someone else to walk it.
And if this conversation has left you with something to sit with, here is the question Sabine closes with: where in your leadership, or in your life, are you holding on when what is needed is for you to pave the path and step aside for others?
Find Rebecca Vermeulen at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-vermeulen-a401113/
Listen to the full episode wherever you find Be the Ripple.
Timestamps
[00:00] Opening: the kind of impact that does not announce itself
[01:00] Introducing Rebecca Vermeulen: thirty years in global healthcare
[04:30] Rebecca’s response: the joy of being here
[05:00] The sabbatical Genentech offers, and the year Rebecca waited to take it
[06:30] The inner voice that gets louder when you ignore it
[07:30] Early career vs. now: would you have listened to that voice twenty years ago?
[08:30] Vulnerability as the doorway into next-level leadership
[10:00] The fear: what if the team can’t manage without me?
[11:30] Watching the team move forward from a distance, and feeling pride
[13:30] Naming the success addiction
[15:00] The trigger that finally made the decision: her daughter, and the quality of time
[17:30] What actually happens when the laptop closes: delegation as opportunity
[19:00] Watching the team work without entering the space
[21:00] Coming back: how do I support this, not lead it?
[22:00] Journaling, From Strength to Strength, and organizing the inner process
[25:00] Sabine on knowing Rebecca through HBA: the empowering leader she has always been
[26:00] The shift from front of the boat to sitting in the sea with people
[28:30] Has your definition of success changed?
[30:00] The rising goalpost: working harder and harder, but toward what?
[33:00] From Strength to Strength: crystallised strength and reflecting light onto others
[36:30] Falling back into old habits: Rebecca catches herself every single week
[37:00] It is work and it is grace
[38:00] The power of a pause: proactive vs. reactive leadership
[39:30] Investing in an Enneagram coach and building accountability
[41:30] Sharing this leadership shift openly with her team
[42:00] The legacy question
[44:00] Sabine reflects on what Rebecca has opened for her personally
[46:00] Closing: where are you holding on when paving the path is what’s needed?
People Also Ask / FAQs
Who is Rebecca Vermeulen?
Rebecca Vermeulen is a Vice President at Genentech, a member of the Roche group, and a pharmacist by training with over thirty years of experience in global healthcare. In 2025 she was the recipient of the Star Award from the Healthcare Business Women’s Association. She has led teams across continents and worked in direct partnership with patients in the development of medicines.
What is this episode about?
This episode explores what happens when a senior leader with thirty years of achievement pauses to examine the relationship between her drive and her ego. Rebecca Vermeulen shares her experience of taking a long-delayed sabbatical, what she learned during that time about success, identity, and legacy, and how her approach to leadership shifted as a result.
What is the success addiction?
Rebecca Vermeulen uses the phrase to describe the pattern by which achievement raises the goalpost rather than satisfying it. Each success leads to a larger target, and the drive to reach it intensifies over time. Recognising this cycle, and asking whether the effort is motivated by impact or by ego, is central to the leadership shift she describes.
What is the power of a pause in leadership?
Rebecca describes the power of a pause as the deliberate practice of stopping before reacting. When she feels the pull to step in, direct, or protect, she asks: do I really need to lean in here? And is this coming from genuine need or from a reactive pattern? The pause creates the space to choose a different response, one that trusts others rather than reaching for control.
What is the book From Strength to Strength?
From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks explores how to reimagine the second half of a career and life. Rebecca read it during her sabbatical and found it a useful framework for thinking about how the kind of strength that made her successful in the first half of her career can be redirected, rather than retired, in the second half. She recommends it for anyone at a career inflection point.
What is Be the Ripple?
Be the Ripple is the Season 2 podcast from The Ripple Network, hosted by Sabine Hutchison. It explores impact that is quiet, delayed, or invisible, and conversations with people who are creating movement in ways that don’t always announce themselves. Find out more at theripplenetwork.com.
Find From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks wherever books are sold.
If today’s conversation sparked something, join The Ripple Network at theripplenetwork.com.
Know someone whose story belongs in Season 2? Reach out at sabine@sabinehutchison.com.
For more on building a career and life that compounds, explore Beyond the Ladder at sabinehutchison.com.
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