By Erin Reid P’01,’05

Susan Green Roberson ’87 grew up in rural Virginia, but by the time she came along as the youngest of three children, her family was somewhat familiar with New England prep schools. Her sister, former trustee Eleanor “Duffy” Green Long ’76, was “actually the second in our family to go prep school,” explains Roberson. “Our older sister went to Exeter as Hotchkiss was not coeducational at that point. But after visiting both schools, I picked Hotchkiss. The faculty welcomed me warmly.”

Roberson said her time in Lakeville helped prepare her for decades of leadership in finance, media, and marketing. She spent much of her career overseeing financials and operations at the global media company, Time Inc., and for many of those years at TIME and Sports Illustrated. She is currently the chief financial officer at the Anti-Defamation League, which combats antisemitism and seeks to secure justice and fair treatment for all.

She says she particularly enjoyed Hotchkiss's English classes and the teachers who brought literature to life. At Hotchkiss, she was encouraged to speak up, think critically, and ask questions. She says those skills continue to serve her to this day.  

Roberson says her career in finance was entirely accidental. “I was an English major and a college newspaper writer and editor at the University of Virginia. I actually don’t see myself as a finance person, though I did receive my MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. At Time Inc., I spent many years in direct marketing, which is mostly analytical, and it led to financial modeling and strategy, and then to general management, which included oversight of finance. But really, just like everything else, good financial management requires telling a clear story. My academic background helps a lot. When I have to whip out a presentation or write up a plan, that part comes pretty naturally.”

Roberson’s advice to students and people starting their careers is simple: try not to overthink it. “What you choose to do in your first job is not what defines you as a professional. You can grow and you can change. Also, don’t take it too seriously. Your family and friends are what really matter. Don’t lose sight of that, as life is short!”

TIME magazine was founded by Hotchkiss’s own Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, both members of the Class of 1916. “There was quite a Hotchkiss tradition ingrained in the DNA of the company. It was special,” she notes. In fact, former Hotchkiss trustee and current Board of Governors member Sarah Thornton-Clifford '76, P'07,'23, who had a long career at Time Inc., was the reason Roberson found her way to her first summer internship that led to her first job.

Hotchkiss’s connections to TIME are many. Roy Edward Larsen P’55,’57 was a longtime president of Time Inc., and James A. Linen III ’30 served as publisher of TIME from 1945 to 1960. Strobe Talbott ’64, first an Eastern European correspondent for the magazine until he became a State Department correspondent, returned to TIME to become editor-at-large and foreign affairs columnist. Notably, other contributors to the magazine included Pulitzer Prize winners Archibald MacLeish, Class of 1911, and John Hersey ’32—the namesakes of Hotchkiss’s MacLeish and Hersey Scholars Programs.

Roberson said she left Time Inc. after two decades because the industry was changing fast and her role was less about the mission of journalism and more about cost management and earnings calls. “I knew long-form journalism was going away, and it was hard to have a front-row seat to that. So I retired and sought out nonprofit, mission-oriented work.” 

After leaving Time Inc., Roberson served as CFO at the Blue School and the Markle Foundation before joining the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in 2023. She works closely with her ADL team to play a key role in the growth and transformation of the organization through financial and strategic analyses and by overseeing enterprise processes and policies. 

She was drawn to ADL, in part, for its similarity to a media company, with a strong programmatic and philanthropic mission. “It is a media company in the sense that it needs to be responsive to evolving events and dynamic news cycles, while remaining strictly nonpartisan. We have been navigating a great deal of change. For example, with the surge of antisemitism on campuses, we pivoted to address it both in our communications and in our programmatic actions centrally and in the regions around the country.”

Roberson has remained involved with Hotchkiss since leaving Lakeville in 1987. She served as president of The Hotchkiss Fund and was a member of the Board of Trustees. In hindsight, she realizes she was shy and not very self-confident as a student. “Coming from rural Virginia, I didn’t think I had much in common with my classmates. Over the years, however, I’ve gotten to know folks from my class and other alumni as well, and I have gotten to reacquaint myself with so many amazing people with interesting stories making exciting contributions in the world. Of all the things I value about having gone to Hotchkiss, I value that the most.”