Partner
Nikki Hafezi
Nikki Hafezi was born near Seattle and raised in Southern California. She has her bachelor’s degree from UCLA (Los Angeles, CA) and her master’s degree in intellectual property from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich.
The “Power-List” 2015 in Ophthalmology
In 2015, Mrs. Hafezi was voted by peers onto the global “PowerList – Top 40 under 40 (years)”, a list of the “young, up-and-coming individuals set to rise to the top of the field.” Mrs. Hafezi was one of only six females listed and one of two nominees only representing the industry.
Current positions
- Partner of GroupAdvance (Management) Consulting GmbH, Zug, Switzerland
- Managing Director & Board Member of EMAGine AG, Zug, Switzerland
- Head of Strategy, Business Development & Licensing, The ELZA Institute, Zurich, Switzerland
- Co-Founder & Managing Partner of the Light for Sight Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland
Skill Set
- Professionally trained in traditional fundraising for non-profit organizations, specifically in the medical field.
- In 2003, Mrs. Hafezi was funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead the industrial liaison office of one of the 21 NSF-funded academic research centres in the United States. This office is responsible for the management of the intellectual property portfolio, raising and managing industrial research funds and facilitating communication between researchers and industry.
- From 2006-current, Mrs. Hafezi has raised over $5 million of funds to support basic and clinical research in the field of ophthalmology through industrial and traditional fundraising means.
- In 2007, Mrs. Hafezi wrote a successful European Commission Framework-7 Program (FP7) grant representing nine European universities entitled “Reducing the national fragmentation of retinal research in Europe.” The grant was awarded $1 million USD.
- With her master’s degree in intellectual property from the ETH Zurich, Mrs. Hafezi is knowledgeable of the workings of the European Patent Office as well as the US Patent and Trademark Office.
- Since 2013, Mrs. Hafezi has been the main intellectual property advisor for a spin-off company from the University of Geneva (EMAGine AG).
- From 2015-current, Mrs. Hafezi has raised an additional $1 million to establish two laboratories in Switzerland and the United States dedicated to ocular cell biology and corneal biomechanics.