S usan Alfond is an American heiress who, along with her three brothers, inherited a multi-billion dollar fortune created by her late father, the self-made entrepreneur Harold Alfond. Her father founded the Dexter Shoe Company in Maine and built it into a major American footwear manufacturer. The family's defining financial moment came in 1993, when her father made a brilliant and life-changing deal to sell the company to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in an all-stock transaction.

While the Dexter Shoe business itself later collapsed due to overwhelming foreign competition—a fact Buffett has called his worst-ever deal—the 25,203 shares of Berkshire Hathaway that the Alfond family received in the deal have since appreciated in value by an astronomical amount. The soaring value of this stock has turned the four Alfond siblings into quiet multi-billionaires. Susan is not involved in business and has dedicated her life to philanthropy through the family's Harold Alfond Foundation, which is a major benefactor to educational and healthcare institutions in their home state of Maine.