British Billionaire Chris Rokos Makes Largest Modern-Era Gift to Cambridge

Chris Rokos is one of the U.K.’s most successful hedge fund managers—an achievement the billionaire attributes to 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 educational system through a staggering £190 million ($251 million) gift to the University of Cambridge. The funds, which will establish a government school, constitute the largest-ever gift to a British university in modern times, according to the 817-year-old institution.

The Rokos School of Government opens its doors this fall with an inaugural cohort of Ph.D. and Master’s students. Its mission will be to prepare future leaders to navigate politics amid a fast-changing world filled with polarization, economic transformations and new technologies.

“I was fortunate to be given the opportunity of an education which transformed my life, and I would like to give something back to Britain,” said Rokos in a statement. “My hope is that, in time, the influence of the Rokos School of Government across the world becomes an important element of the soft power which has been a great asset to the U.K.”

Rokos, 55, is the founder of Rokos Capital Management, which today manages more than $22 billion in assets, and formerly helped launch Brevan Howard Asset Management. But his trajectory to hedge fund success began in a more humble setting: Rokos attended a state primary school before receiving a scholarship to Eton, one of the U.K.’s most prestigious boarding schools. He later studied mathematics at Oxford before starting his investment banking career at UBS, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.

Rokos, who currently has an estimated net worth of $2.3 billion, has agreed to make an initial gift of £130 million ($172 million) to Cambridge. That donation will be followed by further gifts of £60 million ($79 million) that will be matched by the school, which is also contributing land in the Cambridge West Innovation District on which the institution will be located.

The record donation is the latest multimillion-dollar gift to the U.K.’s universities, placing Rokos alongside a small group of wealthy, philanthropically minded financiers. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, gave £150 million ($198 million) to Oxford for a humanities center in 2019, the same year that David Harding, head of Winton Group, donated £100 million ($132 million) to Cambridge to support a scholarship system. Other high-profile gifts to U.K. schools have included a $210 million donation from Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates to fund an international scholarship system at Cambridge, and £75 million ($99 million) from oil tycoon Leonard Blavatnik to establish a government school at Oxford.

This isn’t the first time Rokos has funneled his fortune toward education. He’s funded scholarships at Eton, educational initiatives at Oxford and scholarships and fellowships at Cambridge. Outside of education, the billionaire’s philanthropy has also benefited institutions such as Amnesty International, WaterAid and Chatham House.

His newest gift will bring academics from across politics, science, economics, history, engineering and statistics together to join the new school’s growing faculty, which will additionally include experts in government and business, finance and public service. A search for the dean of the Rokos School of Government will begin shortly.

“We need a broad diversity of thought and intellectual viewpoints,” said Roko in a video accompanying the donation announcement. “If this school were populated only by people with centrist, socially liberal views like me, then the school would have failed.”