Sir Ronnie Cohen
Co-founder
Sir Ronnie is President of GSG Impact and Chair of The Portland Trust, both of which he co-founded, and Vice-Chair of Capitals Coalition following its recent merger with the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts (IFVI), of which he was the founding Chair.
He was co-founder of Social Finance UK, US and Israel and the Education Outcomes Fund, and co-founder Chair of Bridges Fund Management and Better Society Capital. He chaired the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce (2013–14), the UK’s Commission on Unclaimed Assets (2005–7), and the UK’s Social Investment Task Force (2000–10). In 2012 he received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Innovation Award for Social Finance.
He was co-founder and executive Chair of Apax Partners Worldwide LLP (1972–2005), a global private equity firm, and co-founder and Chair of the British Venture Capital Association. He co-founded the European Venture Capital Association as well as EASDAQ.
He is a former member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers and the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, a former director of the Harvard Management Company and a former member of the University of Oxford Investment Committee. He is a former trustee of the British Museum and of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he was President of the Oxford Union, and an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School to which he was awarded a Henry Fellowship.
He is the author of IMPACT: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change (2020), which became a Wall Street Journal Bestseller. A second, expanded edition was released in November 2025. He is also the author of ON IMPACT: a Guide to the Impact Revolution (2018, second edition 2026). His first book, The Second Bounce of the Ball (2007), was described by the Financial Times as “one of the best books written on entrepreneurship in recent years”.
Sir Ronnie was born in Egypt, which he left as a refugee at the age of 11. He lives in London with his wife of more than 30 years, Sharon Harel-Cohen, who is a film producer. They have two children, Tamara and Jonny.