Nikki Hafezi, MAS IP ETHZ

In April 2015, readers of the international journal “The Ophthalmologist” voted Ms. Hafezi into the “Top 40 under 40”, a list of the most promising new personalities in global ophthalmology.

Studies and Postgraduate Education

Mrs. Hafezi studied English and Spanish at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. In addition, Ms. Hafezi holds a Master’s degree in intellectual property from the ETH Zurich (MASIP ETHZ).

Activities

Mrs. Hafezi’s principal pursuits at ELZA include business development, strategic planning, intellectual property and patents, and fundraising.

Humanitarian Initiative

In 2012, she co-founded “Light for Sight,” an international initiative that aims to early recognise and treat keratoconus in children and adolescents. Read more about the charity here.

Awards, The PowerList

In April 2015, readers of the international journal “The Ophthalmologist” voted Mrs. Hafezi into the “Top 40 under 40”, a list of the most promising new personalities, or “rising stars” in global ophthalmology. In total, only 2 people from industry and only six women were members of the list –  underlining the scale of this achievement.

Current Positions

Outside of ELZA, Mrs. Hafezi provides strategic management consulting in the medical field for academic institutions, companies and non-profit organizations in Europe and North America.

Mrs. Hafezi also serves as Chief Executive Officer, EMAGine AG, in Zug, Switzerland, where her focus is on developing and marketing medical therapeutic products, including the innovative C-Eye device, a corneal cross-linking system launched in 2019 and now available in over 40 countries.

Finally, she has been a partner at GroupAdvance Consulting GmbH in Zug since 2007.

Ms. Hafezi lives with her husband and three daughters in Zug, Switzerland.

The ELZA Institute heads to Jeddah for the first SSCRS congress, 24–26 September 2026. Prof. Farhad Hafezi and Nikki Hafezi present four talks spanning personalised cross-linking, epi-on CXL, corneal biomechanics and ELZA-PACE.
Nikki and Farhad Hafezi represented ELZA at Vision China 2026, presenting work on keratoconus epidemiology, corneal cross-linking, K-MAP and international research collaboration.
Light for Sight returned to Bukhara to complete second-eye epi-on CXL treatment for two young girls with keratoconus identified through screening in Uzbekistan
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