John Fish – Suffolk
John Fish is Chairman & CEO of Suffolk, a national real estate enterprise that builds, innovates and invests. Under John’s vision and leadership, Suffolk has grown into one of the most successful privately held builders in the United States, with $6 billion in revenue, 2,600 employees, and a value proposition, commitment to innovation and corporate culture that is redefining the built world. Suffolk truly is “America’s contractor” and manages some of the most complex, sophisticated projects in the country, serving clients in every major industry sector, including healthcare, life sciences, education, gaming, transportation/aviation, government, mission critical and commercial. With main offices in Boston (headquarters), New York City, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Estero, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Virginia and Maine, Suffolk is omnipresent in active real estate markets around the country.
John is a fixture on numerous Boards focused on economic stability and real estate industry growth. He is the Chair of the Real Estate Roundtable, a non-partisan organization that represents the largest and most successful real estate developers in the country and is the most influential voice in Washington, D.C. for more equitable policies for economic growth.
John also serves as Chair of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sits on the Executive Committee of Mass General Brigham, and is the Chair of the Board at Boston College, his second time serving and the first non-alum to ever fulfill that role. In recent years, John has chaired both the Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and he is a founding member and director of the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP).
Our conversation with John begins with an overview of the ever-innovating Suffolk, including a discussion around Suffolk’s platform verticals which support the core mission of the company. We then take a step back, and hear from John about his academic experiences at Tabor Academy and Bowdoin College, tackling and embracing his dyslexia, and his entry into the construction industry, in which the Fish family had deep roots. We then move onto the formation of Suffolk, the early years and the evolution of the company in its early years as a non-union business. John shares with us candid insights into the challenges and struggles of growing the company in a politically-charged construction environment, and the relationship building that served as a catalyst for long-term growth of the company.
We cover a lot of ground outside of Suffolk, and John was generous in sharing his unique perspective on policy, politics, and economic issues at hand today in the US. Finally and maybe most importantly, we discuss John and Cyndy Fish’s extraordinary commitment to caring for their community, and their incredible leadership in countless philanthropic endeavors.
This was one of our most-requested and highly-anticipated guests, and we sincerely appreciate John sharing his time and insights with us and our Good Dirt audience. We look forward to having him back again!
For more information on Suffolk, visit www.suffolk.com
Tom Greeley
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/
Mike Greeley
