Chris Rokos is one of the UK’s most successful hedge fund managers – an achievement the billionaire attributes to the educational opportunities he has received over the years, including a scholarship to Eton and an Oxford degree. Now, Ruckus is giving back to his country’s education system with a stunning £190 million ($251 million) gift to the University of Cambridge. The money allocated to establish a public school constitutes the largest gift ever to a British university in the modern era, according to the 817-year-old institution.
The Ruckus School of Government opens its doors this fall with an inaugural class 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 polarization, economic transformations, and new technologies.
“I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to have an education that changed my life, and I would like to give something back to Britain,” Rokos said in a statement. “I hope that, over time, the influence of the Ruckus School of Governance around the world will become an important element of the soft power that has been a great asset 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 more humble surroundings: Ruckus attended a state primary school before earning a scholarship to Eton, one of the UK’s most prestigious boarding schools. He later studied mathematics at Oxford University before beginning a career in investment banking at UBS, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
Ruckus, which he currently has Her net worth is estimated at $2.3 billionIt agreed to make an initial gift of £130 million ($172 million) to Cambridge. The donation will be followed by another £60 million ($79 million) in gifts that will be matched by the school, which is also contributing land in the Cambridge West Innovation District on which the foundation will be located.
The record donation is the latest multi-million-dollar gift to UK universities, placing Ruckus alongside a small group of wealthy, philanthropically-minded funders. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman gave £150 million ($198 million) to Oxford to create a humanities center in 2019, the same year that David Harding, chairman of the Winton Group, donated £100 million ($132 million) to Cambridge to support the scholarship scheme. Other notable gifts to schools in the UK included a $210 million donation from Bill Gates and Melinda French-Gates to fund the International Scholarships Scheme in Cambridge, and £75 million ($99 million) from oil tycoon Leonard Blavatnik to establish a state school in Oxford.
This is not the first time Ruckus has directed his wealth towards education. He has funded scholarships at Eton, educational initiatives at Oxford and scholarships and fellowships at Cambridge. Beyond education, the billionaire’s philanthropy has also benefited organizations such as Amnesty International, WaterAid and Chatham House.
His new gift will bring academics from across the fields of politics, science, economics, history, engineering and statistics together to join the new school’s growing faculty, which will additionally include experts in government, business, finance and public service. The search for the Dean of the Ruckus School of Government will begin soon.
“We need a broad diversity of thought and intellectual viewpoints,” Rocco said in a video accompanying the donation announcement. “If this school had only been populated by people with centrist and socially liberal views like me, the school would have failed.”
