Susan G. Marineau is the chair of The Santa Fe Opera. She also currently serves on the board of the San Francisco Opera. In a long career of service, she has been a board member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of San Francisco, and the Women’s Foundation of California. Marineau was also the president of the board of the Chicago Foundation for Women and founding president of Friends of Battered Women and Their Children.

Marineau has worked as an advertising copywriter, buyer for a large retailer, and marketing consultant. She now has a studio in Stinson Beach, California, where she paints when her opera duties allow. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois in Urbana and her M.B.A. from Loyola University in Chicago.