Former P&G Ad Chief Describes Sex Addiction That Plagued His Career
It’s well known that former Procter & Gamble global vp of marketing Denis Beausejour left his position atop the planet’s largest advertising budget to go into the seminary. It’s less well-known that during his rise at P&G he struggled with a sex addiction that included massage parlors, hookers and porn.
Beausejour (pictured), now a pastor at Mariemont Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, confessed his steamy past on his church’s web site. It tells the story of his life, beginning in his youth:
The most obvious problem was my sexual addiction. It started as a teen with magazines and then videos and strip clubs. In 1988 we moved to Sydney, where I was responsible to establish P&G Australia.
As he grew P&G’s sales, his business travels offered temptations that can’t be satisfied by Tide and Bounty:
By 1991, the business had grown by 400%, and I was elected as P&G’s youngest-ever vice-president at 34. I traveled more and more across Asia. In most places, massage parlors were cheaper than an in-room movie here, and when massage parlors weren’t enough, it was a short step to call on a prostitute.
In 1996, while on a retreat in Hong Kong, Beausejour discovered a religious calling and vowed to clean up his act:
We are wired to need God and the hole inside us cannot be filled with money, sex, wisdom, power, fame, or anything else! Once I had invited Jesus into my life, the hole in my soul got filled. I have not looked at pornography in 8 years. I have a new life with my kids. God cleaned up my language. Those are His miracles!
In 2000, while overseeing an ad budget worth $2 billion that made him the most sought-after client on earth, Beausejour left the business to pursue his faith — a move that baffled many at the time.
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Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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