Dr Rob John
Visiting Senior Fellow, NUS Business School, Singapore
Rob is in the midst of his third career. Trained as an organic chemist and equipped with a PhD from
Oxford he held university research posts in the US, Switzerland and Ethiopia, focused on synthesising
complex, medically active molecules. He contributed to research that won the 2010 Nobel Prize in
chemistry.
But Ethiopia was life changing experience. Leaving a career at the laboratory bench he spent the
next 15 years as a development worker, managing refugee, humanitarian, community development
and microcredit programmes throughout Africa and Asia.
In 2000 he embarked on his third career when asked to manage a venture philanthropy fund based
in Oxford, which traces its roots to funding the start up of Oxfam, ActionAid and other successful
development agencies. Five years later he began collaborating with professionals from the private
equity community to build a venture philanthropy network in Europe. In 2010 he co-founded the
Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, headquartered in Singapore.
From 2005-09 Rob was a visiting fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Said Business
School in Oxford and from 2011 is a senior fellow at the Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
& Philanthropy at NUS Business School, Singapore, where he is researching the development of
entrepreneurial social finance in Asia. When not in Singapore, Rob is based out of Bristol, United
Kingdom.