George Rohr

Rohr was born in 1954 in Bogota, Colombia. He graduated from Harvard College and received his MBA from Harvard Business School.[2] As an undergraduate he was President of the Harvard Lampoon during its 100th anniversary year in 1976.[3] He and his wife Pamela L. Rohr live in New York City.[4] They have four children.[5]

Since 1993 the NCH group of funds has been investing across asset classes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on behalf of their institutional clients.[5] Rohr began investing in the region shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and was among the earliest Western participants in the privatization opportunities offered by several of the region’s markets. In addition to its investments in real-estate,[6] private equity[7] and public securities, NCH is among the largest agribusiness[8][9] investors in the Black Sea region.[10] In 2010 NCH extended its investment operations to Latin America.[1]

Rohr’s principal philanthropic focus has been on Jewish education, particularly through initiatives such as the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute[11] and the establishment of more than 100 Chabad Houses across college campuses in North America,[12] as well as on the revival of Jewish communal life in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in partnership with Chabad. In 2006, Rohr and his sisters established the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature to honor, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, their father’s lifelong love of Jewish writing.[13] The annual award recognizes the unique role of contemporary writers in the transmission and examination of the Jewish experience. The $100,000 prize is administered by the Jewish Book Council and is intended to encourage emerging writers whose work demonstrates a fresh vision and the promise of further growth. In conjunction with this award, Rohr established the Sami Rohr Jewish Literary Institute, a forum devoted to the continuity of Jewish literature. Additionally, Rohr is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Avi Chai Foundation.[5]