Rokos is kicking off with £130m in funding for the university, plus another £60m that Cambridge will match to launch what they’ll call the Rokos School of Government.
He’s a 55-year-old British investor and philanthropist based in the UK, and he founded the global multi-asset investment firm Rokos Capital Management.
The Sunday Times Rich List estimates his worth at around £2.6bn. The same paper also lists him among the UK’s top taxpayers each year.
Rokos won a scholarship to Eton after attending a state primary school and went on to study maths at Pembroke College, Oxford. He’s previously backed scholarships at Eton and projects linked to Pembroke College financially.
About his donation, Rokos said: “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. My hope is that, in time, the influence of the Rokos School of Government across the world becomes an important element of that soft power which has been a great asset to the UK.”
He mentioned talks about creating this new school started years ago with Dr Elisabeth Kendall, who’s now President of Girton College. They were friends back when they studied together at Oxford.
Those conversations helped them realize there’s a real need to prepare future leaders for coming challenges.
“It was becoming clear that the world was changing in new and different ways, and that the processes of government needed to adapt accordingly. For me, there can be no better home for the Rokos School of Government than Cambridge University with its long tradition of scientific innovation and synergistic culture”, he added.
