Chris Rokos

Christopher Charles Rokos is British and was born in September 1970.⁠[1]

Rokos received a scholarship to attend Eton College in 1984 in recognition of his academic ability.⁠[2]

Rokos graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford, with a first-class mathematics degree in 1992.⁠[3]

After university, Rokos worked at UBSUBSUBS is a global financial group headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, operating wealth management, Swiss personal and corporate banking, asset management and investment banking. Its modern bank emerged from a 1998 merger, its holding company was incorporated in 2014, and it acquired Credit Suisse in 2023.Open the full entry and then Goldman Sachs, moving from derivatives structuring to swap market making and proprietary trading. Alan Howard subsequently recruited him to Credit Suisse.⁠[3]

Rokos co-founded Brevan Howard in 2002 with Alan Howard, Trifon Natsis, James Vernon and Jean-Philippe Blochet, all formerly at Credit Suisse First Boston. A 2011 institutional due-diligence report identifies him as a founding partner and senior trader, previously a proprietary trader in the bank’s developed-market rates team.⁠[4]

Bloomberg’s 2014 account, based on litigation documents, attributed trading profits for Brevan Howard’s main fund of $1.11 billion in 2007, $549 million in 2008, $933 million in 2009 and $1.27 billion in 2011 to Rokos, alongside a $12 million loss in 2010. These were trading contributions, not his wealth or the fund’s overall return.⁠[5]

Rokos began supporting Eton’s New Foundation Scholarship in 2010. Later renamed the Rokos Scholarship, it serves academically strong boys who attended state primary schools and need financial support. In 2025 Eton reported that it supported four pupils per year group, twenty in total.⁠[2]

The US Treasury’s inaugural Annual Roundtable on Treasury Markets and Debt Management took place in Washington on November 18, 2011. Its agenda named Rokos and New York University’s Viral Acharya as discussants for UCLA’s Francis Longstaff’s presentation on systemic sovereign credit risk.⁠[6]

The Treasury’s accompanying biography described his work in global interest rates and currencies, particularly developed markets. It listed Oxford BA and MA degrees in mathematics and his status as a Foundation Fellow of Pembroke College.⁠[7]

Contemporary reporting on litigation documents said Rokos left Brevan Howard in June 2012 and continued winding down positions until September. His trading contributed a $383 million loss to the main fund that year.⁠[5]

After leaving, he ran a London family office managing his own money.⁠[8]

Pembroke’s Rokos Quad opened in 2013. The college’s later account identified Rokos as a major supporter of the building appeal and of fellowships in physics and economics, postgraduate study and postdoctoral research.⁠[9][10]

Rokos sued Brevan Howard in Jersey’s Royal Court in May 2014 to challenge contractual limits on managing outside money and launching another fund. ReutersReutersReuters is an international news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter and is now the news business of Thomson Reuters. It provides text, photo, video, and graphics coverage to media and institutional clients and distributes it through channels such as Reuters Connect.Open the full entry reported that the restrictions extended to 2018. Brevan Howard opposed his claim and counterclaimed, arguing that the provisions protected its business, goodwill and reputation.⁠[11][8]

Rokos returned to fund management in 2015 by founding Rokos Capital Management.⁠[3]

Rokos Capital Management LLP was incorporated in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2015.⁠[12]

On January 8, 2015, London’s Institute of Cancer Research described a five-year Chris Rokos Fellowship in Evolution and Cancer. Its first recipient, Andrea Sottoriva, moved from the University of Southern California to establish a team combining mathematical and computational models with patient genomic data to study cancer evolution and treatment resistance. The announcement said the first year’s funding had supported recruitment and initial data collection.⁠[13]

The parties reached a commercial settlement in late January 2015. Rokos’s lawyers said he could establish a fund in which Brevan Howard would hold an economic interest. The firm had previously expected a seven-day trial in March.⁠[11]

Pembroke launched the Rokos Awards research-internship programme in 2016 for science undergraduates. The inaugural awards covered the full costs of summer projects at institutions in Oxford, elsewhere in Europe and the United States, including research on cancer cells, radiation during entry into Mars’s atmosphere and visual impairment.⁠[10]

In October 2019 the firm combined portfolios previously managed by individual traders into a core portfolio led by Rokos. Spokesman Alan Kilkenny said Rokos had already been responsible for approximately 70% of investment risk before the change.⁠[14]

Pembroke announced that Ana Namburete would become its first Rokos Fellow and Tutor in Computer Science that autumn, ahead of introducing undergraduate computer science in 2022. The college’s master credited Rokos’s funding with enabling the post and programme.⁠[15]

Minutes of the New York Fed’s Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets meeting on April 17, 2024 list Rokos as attending for Rokos Capital Management. Topics included the US economic and monetary-policy outlook and risk-asset valuations.⁠[16]

Eton marked the scholarship programme’s fifteenth anniversary and Rokos’s endowment support on June 21, 2025. It renamed the former Parade Ground Rokos Yard and unveiled a sundial designed by former pupil Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd.⁠[2]

Pembroke announced the relaunch of its Rokos Internship and Rokos Awards for 2025–26. The internships fund accommodation, living and academic costs for summer research; the awards recognise undergraduate performance in public examinations, with up to £1,000 available each year.⁠[17]

Rokos attended the Bank of England’s November 12, 2025 meeting as a member of its Market Participants Group. Topics included international economic risks, UK monetary policy and the forthcoming budget. The attendance list separately identified market participants and Monetary Policy Committee members.⁠[18]

In 2026 Rokos donated a further £5 million to Girton College, Cambridge.⁠[3]

Cambridge announced Rokos’s pledge of up to £190 million for a new School of Government: £130 million initially and up to £60 million subsequently, with Cambridge matching the later gifts. Operations were planned for autumn 2026.⁠[3]

Girton said Rokos and its head, Elisabeth Kendall, had known each other since their undergraduate years at Pembroke, Oxford. Their discussions about future governance helped inspire the school. The proposed charitable trust, subject to approval, would have two university nominees and two donor nominees.⁠[19]

Queens’ College reported that Rokos had fully funded its first endowed Alexander Crummell Scholarship, Rokos Postdoctoral Research Associateships and the Rokos-Menon Senior Research Fellowship. The postdoctoral programme brings researchers employed by Cambridge and partner institutions into the college’s academic and social community.⁠[20]

In a Cambridge interview published on April 20, 2026, Rokos said a scholarship at age ten, following state education, had transformed his life and inspired him to support education. He envisioned a global, interdisciplinary school combining technology, science, law, economics, politics and the humanities to prepare public leaders for changing governance challenges.⁠[21]

Cambridge’s Reporter published a proposal to establish the Rokos School of Government as a Faculty of Government within the School of the Physical Sciences, with permanent professorships. Donations would be held by an independent charitable trust, invested in the university’s endowment fund and distributed through annual grants. The proposal required university approval and the trust’s charitable registration.⁠[22]

In Cambridge’s formal discussion, S. J. Cowley and G. P. Allen sought disclosure of trust arrangements and questioned funding security and potential trustee influence over academic direction. R. J. Bowring questioned the school’s necessity, detail and university contribution. John Aston, Jon Simons, Manali Desai and Nigel Peake supported opportunities for interdisciplinary work, doctoral funding and policy education.⁠[23]

In a response dated May 28 and published June 3, Cambridge’s Council said the donor had required an independent charity to hold the funds. Half its directors would be university nominees and half donor nominees, without authority to direct the school. The Council cited safeguards for academic freedom, rolling five-year general funding and long-term protection for permanent posts and endowed doctoral places. It withheld the full deed for commercial reasons but released an academic-freedom clause.⁠[24]

The published terms give the university sole operational responsibility, with appointments, scholarships and admissions governed by its procedures. Donations cannot determine research or teaching, or give the donor, trust or foundation control over university intellectual property, data or publication.⁠[25]

Cambridge’s Regent House approved the Graces submitted on June 3, including the school proposal and permanent professorships, on June 12, 2026. The establishment report retained the condition that the associated charitable trust complete registration.⁠[26][27][22]

Bloomberg cited people familiar with the arrangements as saying that Rokos was moving his residence from Britain to Greece. Athens Voice’s account described an expected transfer of tax residence. Rokos Capital Management declined to comment.⁠[28][29]

Kathimerini’s English edition subsequently reported that Rokos had chosen Greece as his tax residence and that Rokos Capital Management was preparing to establish a local presence. The article distinguished personal residency from company expansion, without publishing tax-authority confirmation or an opening date for an Athens office.⁠[30]

When checked in October 2026, the New York Fed continued to list Rokos, chief investment officer of Rokos Capital Management, on its Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. The group provides informal advice to the bank’s leadership and has no formal policymaking responsibilities.⁠[31]

Queens’ College identifies Rokos as a Fellow Benefactor and records the Chris Rokos Fellowship in Geography established through his support.⁠[32]

Rokos Capital Management: Official website: https://www.rokoscapital.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2][33]

Brevan Howard: Official website: https://www.brevanhoward.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4][34]

Eton College: Official website: https://www.etoncollege.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2][35]

Pembroke College, Oxford: Official website: https://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10][36]

Institute of Cancer Research: Official website: https://www.icr.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13][37]

University of Cambridge: Official website: https://www.cam.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19][38]

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Official website: https://www.newyorkfed.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[31][39]

Bank of England: Official website: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18][40]

Girton College, Cambridge: Official website: https://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19][41]

Queens’ College, Cambridge: Official website: https://www.queens.cam.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[32][42]