Who will be the “next Jack Connors”? Probably no one.

For years the question has circulated in Boston business circles: Who will be the next Jack Connors?

That simple question had several implications. Who could navigate the worlds of philanthropy, business, higher education, health care and politics as deftly as Connors? Who had the fundraising talent to quickly raise money for a worthy cause? Who could mentor the next generation of Boston business leaders?

Although the advertising executive turned philanthropist has faded somewhat from the spotlight since leaving Partners HealthCare’s board 12 years ago, Connors has remained a mover and shaker behind the scenes. The lunch meetings, the ringing phones. They kept going. On June 8, Connors celebrated raising $13.4 million for his favorite charity, Camp Harbor View, at their annual Beach Ball. He turned 82 the next day. A few days later, he began to feel ill. Less than six weeks later, he died of cancer.

Now, that question serves as a reminder of what Boston has lost. Everywhere you turn, there’s “Jack’s story”: how he advised power players as they started their own companies, from George Reagan in the 1980s to Geri Denterlein in 2000 and Dan Cence in recent years; how he championed the Boston Community Protection Act in 2016, lobbying other business leaders not to fight it; how he helped launch the anti-opioid initiative RIZE Massachusetts a year later.

He will be especially missed at Camp Harbor View, where, says executive director Sharon McNally, the camp has just lost the best fundraiser Boston has ever known. In addition to his annual budget, Connors tirelessly built an endowment that could help ensure the camp’s survival. Connors knew he would one day go. That day came sooner than anyone expected.

So who will be the “next” Jack Connors? Two names are mentioned most often: John Fish, owner of Suffolk Construction, and Bob Rivers, executive chairman of Eastern Bank.

Fish said he approached Connors about 20 years ago, knowing he could “learn a whole different set of skills” from the man. Connors advised Fish on a program to help student athletes at Boston schools, and Fish’s firm built Camp Harbor View at Connors’ request. Connors also brought Fish onto the boards of Boston College and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Fish said he could not have achieved his successes without Connors’ mentorship.

Fish says Connors is irreplaceable. In some ways, Connors was the “glue” that held Boston’s business community together, Fish said, and now he worries the divisions will continue to deepen without Connors around.

As for Rivers, the banker has entered public policy six years ago, when he led a coalition to kill a 2018 ballot question that would have stripped transgender people of their rights. More recently, Rivers has campaigned on early childhood education and is raising money to fight a ballot measure that would have ended the use of MCAS test scores to award high school diplomas.

Like Fish, Rivers said it would be “impossible” for one person to carry the torch that Connors lit — though he said Boston’s leaders could collectively bridge much of the gap if they worked together.

Other names that come up include Ron O’Hanley of State Street and Corey Thomas of Rapid7, former and current presidents of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Both have a keen interest in local issues while running global companies. The women in this group tend to be in less visible roles than CEOs—people like Eneida Roman, who runs Amplify Latinx, or Beth Boland, a partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner, who advises women serving on corporate boards or aspiring to do so.

The business world in Boston has changed dramatically since Connors took over at Hill Holliday, the advertising agency he helped found in 1968 and ran until 2006. The levers of power are no longer in the hands of a few men, and the fates of the city’s big employers are no longer as intertwined.

Gone are the days when Boston was run by a shadow government of white men who came together in a group known as the Vault. Today, Boston’s influential figures are far more diverse and diversified than they were in Connors’ heyday.

People are talking about the “New Vault,” the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership. (Fish, O’Hanley and Thomas are among the 20 board members.) The coalition of high-profile CEOs includes several women and people of color, but many members are more connected to global markets than to Boston’s economy. This broader shift in the local economy is particularly noticeable in banking, where regional CEOs at out-of-state institutions don’t have the same room to engage with local civic issues.

Fundraising has changed in a similar way. It was easier to raise money in a more focused era. Executives would see their friends honored at a gala and pull out a check to pay for a table or two. Now, many of those decisions go through the internal bureaucracy of grantmaking, a far cry from the one-on-one approach Connors used.

Yes, the broader changes make it unlikely that someone like Connors will ever come along. But it’s hard to forget his unique personality, his willingness to give time to almost anyone — often greeting you with a “Can I help you?” and saying goodbye with a mischievous smile and a gift of maple syrup from a Vermont farm.

As crowds gather this week to pay their respects, the question of the next Jack Connors will inevitably come up again. The answer remains: There can only be one Jack Connors.

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Jon Chesto can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @jonchesto.