Susan Schwartz received a BA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and an MBA from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, then worked in mar­ket­ing at Nabis­co and Gen­er­al Foods. After leav­ing cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca, she worked free­lance mak­ing TV com­mer­cials for thir­teen years before join­ing her hus­band in exec­u­tive search. She worked as a bak­er for two years after col­lege. She grew up in Philly.