Chris Rokos is one of the UK’s most successful hedge fund managers—a success the billionaire reflects on the educational opportunities he’s received over the years, including a scholarship to Eton and an Oxford degree. Now, Rokos is giving back to his country’s education system with a staggering gift of £190 million ($251 million) to the University of Cambridge. The funds, which will establish a public school, are the largest gift to a British university in modern times, according to the 817-year-old institution.
The Rokos School of Public Administration is opening its doors this fall with the first batch of Ph.D. and Master’s students. Its mission will be to prepare future leaders to navigate politics in a rapidly changing world filled with fragmentation, economic change and new technologies.
“I was lucky enough to be given an educational opportunity that changed my life, and I want to give something back to Britain,” Rokos said in a statement. “My hope is that, over time, the influence of Rokos Public School around the world becomes an important soft power factor of great value to the UK”
Rokos, 55, is the founder of Rokos Capital Management, which today manages more than $22 billion in assets, and previously helped launch Brevan Howard Asset Management. But his path to hedge fund success began in humble circumstances: Rokos attended a public primary school before winning a scholarship to Eton, one of the UK’s most prestigious boarding schools. He later studied mathematics at Oxford before starting a career in investment banking at UBS, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
Rokos, currently worth an estimated $2.3 billion, has agreed to make an initial gift of £130 million ($172 million) to Cambridge. That donation will be followed by another £60 million ($79 million) gift to the school, which is donating land in the Cambridge West Innovation District where the center will be located.
The record donation is the latest multi-million dollar gift to UK universities, placing Rokos alongside a small group of wealthy, generous donors. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, gave Oxford £150 million ($198 million) to the humanities center in 2019, the same year David Harding, head of the Winton Group, donated £100 million ($132 million) to Cambridge to fund the study program. Other high-profile gifts to UK schools include a $210 million donation from Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates to fund an international scholarship program at Cambridge, and £75 million ($99 million) from oil tycoon Leonard Blavatnik to establish a public school in Oxford.
This is not the first time Rokos has made his fortune in education. He has been supported by scholarships at Eton, academic programs at Oxford and scholarships and fellowships at Cambridge. Apart from education, the billionaire’s philanthropy has also benefited institutions such as Amnesty International, WaterAid and Chatham House.
His new endowment will bring together scholars from across politics, science, economics, history, engineering and mathematics to join the new school’s growing faculty, which will include experts in government and business, finance and public service. The search for the principal of Rokos Public School will begin soon.
“We need diversity of thought and creative ideas,” Roko said in a video accompanying the donation announcement. “If this school was full of people with liberal views like me, the school would fail.”
