Young Alumni Spotlight
Max Sussman ’19, right, and his brother, Jake Sussman, are co-founders of Superpower Mentors.
Read the Spring/Summer 2024 Hotchkiss Magazine
By Daniel Lippman ’08
Max Sussman '19 never expected to be a successful entrepreneur at the age of 24. As a postgraduate at Hotchkiss, his focus was on his role as captain of the varsity basketball team and striving to play the sport in college. Due to an injury and some other circuitous turns in his life, Sussman is now co-founder and CEO of Superpower Mentors, a company that helps neurodiverse individuals confidently navigate and succeed in any environment.
Sussman traces back a significant part of his company’s mission to his successful effort in becoming independent at Hotchkiss. He credits Hotchkiss with preparing him to earn his bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship and new venture management at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business. He also gained a sense of personal responsibility at Hotchkiss that he had not learned at his previous high school. He says that such skills are critical when starting a business, making a payroll, and keeping the proverbial lights on at a startup.
“Hotchkiss really helped shape who I am as a person,” he said, noting that he enjoyed being a member of Hillel at the School. “Even in that one year that I was there, the community, the support, the opportunity, the friends … it was endless. I think that everyone cares for everyone there, and people feel that.”
Sussman joined Superpower Mentors early last year with his brother and co-founder, Jake, who has long faced struggles dealing with ADHD. Jake was told from a very early age that “he would never go to college or make something of himself.” (He ignored the critics and attended and graduated from the University of Hartford.)
The neurodiverse individuals who connect with Superpower Mentors have a range of diagnoses, including ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and Tourette syndrome. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of the world’s population is neurodivergent.
The company connects the next generation of neurodiverse thinkers with an adult who is also neurodiverse to help them navigate and succeed in school and life so that they have the best chance possible to have a productive start to adulthood.
“We help establish self-confidence and self-advocacy skills that eventually lead to independence and being able to feel good about yourself, make decisions, and grow,” Sussman said. “A lot of our mentees feel stuck because they are alone and they don’t have anyone that they can relate to.”
The Superpower Mentors team helps neurodiverse individuals confidently navigate and succeed in any environment.
Working in seven countries so far, Superpower Mentors, which started in 2020, has already completed more than 8,000 virtual mentorship sessions and has more than 100 certified mentors and a similar number of mentees. Families pay for their children to participate in weekly sessions with a mentor, as well as additional hours of extra strategy and family consultations.
In the early mentorship sessions, the mentor put the mentee’s strengths under a magnifying glass to figure out ways to harness them to address their personal challenges. According to the company’s website, mentees learn how to “embrace their superpower,” enhance their communication skills, and find healthy outlets to feel expressed.
Mentors include an engineer working on NASA’s lunar expedition, another engineer working at an aerospace company, and successful professionals in a wide range of fields. “My son was on the couch resorting to destructive habits prior to Superpower Mentors,” one parent wrote in a company testimonial. “If it were not for Superpower Mentors, he would not even be close to nearing the finish line of college, which is where he is today.”
By attending Hotchkiss, Sussman followed his dad, David Sussman ’87, P’19. David now runs a major Connecticut life insurance company started by his father.
Sussman’s year in Lakeville was not without challenges, which he overcame with the help of the Hotchkiss community. While he was the captain of the basketball team, he suffered a season-ending injury that left him questioning his place at the School.
“I was not an active member of the community for a period of time because I couldn’t play the sport that I was there for,” he recalled. One of his most influential teachers, Liz Dittmer, the Maria Bissell Hotchkiss Chair and instructor in mathematics, would call him in the morning before class to make sure he was on his way.
“Beyond community, it’s more like a family,” he said of Hotchkiss. “People are looking out for each other, and it’s something that I really was able to appreciate.”
Daniel Lippman ’08 is a reporter covering the White House and Washington at POLITICO and can be reached at daniel@politico.com.