Quick Facts
Biography
John Fish is an American businessman. He is the longtime chairman and CEO of Suffolk Construction Company, the largest building company in New England, and was vice-chair of the private effort to secure Boston’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Fish is the chair of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce as well as the chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and he sits on a variety of university, hospital, and nonprofit boards. In 2012, Boston magazine named him the #1 most powerful person in Boston.
Early life and education
Fish was raised in Hingham, Massachusetts, with four siblings. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1982.
Suffolk Construction Company
At age 23, Fish and his father established Suffolk Construction Company, an offshoot of the family construction business. The son built it into a top national construction company responsible for high-profile projects such as Boston’s Millennium Tower and a new facility at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. As of 2014, Suffolk has 1,250 employees, $2 billion in annual revenue, and almost $6 billion in projects under way in Boston.
Boston's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics
John Fish was a vocal advocate for hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston, and he was vice-chair of the Boston 2024 Partnership, a private group that worked on the bid. After the controversially expensive Olympics in Beijing and Sochi, the Boston 2024 Partnership promoted a budget-conscious event, funded without taxpayer money and using existing venues and temporary facilities. On January 8, 2015, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) chose Boston from among four U.S. cities to compete for the final bid, but the city ultimately withdrew its bid to host the Games on July 27, 2015.
Other roles
In addition to his work at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Fish is a founding member of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP), chair of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital “Life.Giving.Breakthroughs” $1 billion capital campaign, founder of Boston Scholar Athletes, and chairman of Boston College’s Board of Trustees, the first non-alumnus in that role.