Alumni Spotlight: Suzanna (HS ‘08) and Matthew (HS ‘10) Grobman

Siblings Suzanna (HS ‘08) and Matthew (HS ‘10) Grobman have taken unconventional career paths and are now running a family business together. One could say they flushed some of their initial prospects and created a bright (and more fragrant) future. 

Suzanna graduated from Boston University after making a HUGE switch from Costume Design to a degree in Religion. While on her first vacation with her then boyfriend (now husband), Suzanna began to notice that he was frequently disappearing and re-emerging with gifts from the hotel lobby, and she became slightly suspicious of his whereabouts.  After several days, he confessed that he was using the lobby bathroom. Inspired by the universal challenges of sharing a bathroom, and underwhelmed by the current crude-humored and mass market solutions available, Suzanna was determined to find a better option by creating a sophisticated and travel-friendly home fragrance for the toilet, which is when POTTYMINTS was born. 

After graduating from NYU with a degree in Entrepreneurship and a short stint in Real Estate, Matthew joined the POTTYMINTS team. He now works side by side with his sister and has played an integral role in transforming this family business into a successful brand. POTTYMINTS is now available at over 3,000 retail locations including The Container Store, Urban Outfitters, Paper Source, and Ace Hardware.

Suzanna credits her ability to appreciate and learn from other people’s ideas in both life and business to her experience at Heschel. “Heschel was an incredibly transformative experience, as it taught us to question everything and understand the reasoning behind making difficult decisions. Heschel taught us how to listen and how to value others’ opinions, even if you didn’t necessarily agree with them.”

Matthew echoes Suzanna’s statements saying that “Heschel helped define how I lead my life, and what I will leave for future generations.”

Suzanna hopes to pass on the Jewish lessons learned from her time at Heschel to her 10 month old daughter, Rafaela!