Marguerite Hoffman attended the University of Oklahoma where she received a B.A. in Classics followed by a M.A. degree in Art History from the University of Virginia. In 1980, she moved to Washington, D.C. and started an art tour company called Arts Alive, Inc., which she led for three years before moving to Dallas, Texas in 1984. She served as Director of Marketing and Public Relations at the Dallas Museum of Art and then as an art gallery director and private dealer working with major collectors.

Marguerite has focused on volunteer opportunities in the non-profit arena, serving as Chair of the Board for four major non-profits: Planned Parenthood of North Texas, Child Care Group, the Dallas Museum of Art and currently Public Radio International. From 2000 to 2004, she and her late husband, Robert Hoffman, co- chaired the Centennial Campaign for the Dallas Museum of Art, which resulted in adding over $150 million dollars to the museum's resources as well as boosting the museum's encyclopedic collections by over 2000 works of art through acquisition and bequest. In 2013 she established the Marguerite and Robert Hoffman endowment fund at the DMA for the acquisition and support of European art prior to 1700.

Other civic and community activities have included serving on the Boards of Directors of Dignitas International, a medical humanitarian organization working in sub-Saharan Africa; The School for Ethics and Global Leadership; and most recently, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Marguerite also sits on the Advisory Committees of the Dallas Women's Foundation; Parkland Hospital; Planned Parenthood and is a member of the Visiting Committee to the Department of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the Morgan Library & Museum. In 2012 she became a member of Women Moving Millions, an international organization composed of women who have contributed over a million dollars to organizations supporting women and girls.

She has received the TACA Silver Cup Award for outstanding leadership in the arts; the ArtTable Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts Award; Planned Parenthood's Gertrude Shelburne Humanitarian Award; and was cited by Business Week magazine as one of the 50 top philanthropists in the nation.

From 2007 until recently, she served as Chairman of Custom Food Group, a regional, full line vending company operating in six states that had been owned by the Hoffman family for two decades.

Marguerite has three much beloved daughters, Kate, 21, and her two stepdaughters, Hannah, 31, and Augusta, 24. In her spare time, she enjoys art collecting (particularly contemporary art and illuminated medieval manuscripts), travel, researching biotech companies, investing in Broadway productions, playing golf and canasta, and sailing.