Raheem Rahmathullah has over 35 years of experience in international eye care development and 13 years of managing large eye hospitals. He has built capacity and systems management within IEF's network of 71 eye hospitals in 23 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, 25 of which have been public sector hospitals with the Pan American Health Organization, (PAHO) and other International NGO’s such as Orbis International and Christopher Blind Mission (CBM). He currently serves as a senior technical advisor to the USAID Child Blindness program and has been in this advisory role for the past 12 years.

Raheem joined IEF in 2000 directly from the Aravind Eye Care System in India where he managed several of the Aravind Eye Hospitals focusing on high-volume cataract surgery for over 10 years. He served as a research coordinator on clinical trials and population-based prevalence studies, on vitamin A supplementation, evaluation of the quality of life in patients with cataracts, and eye banking. Before joining IEF, he established and administered the Rotary Aravind International Eye Bank in Madurai building it into one of the world’s largest eye banks. Raheem has a bachelor’s degree, completed, a Certificate course in Community Eye Health from the International Center for Eye Health and numerous short courses covering epidemiology & biostatistics, health management, eye banking training from the International Federation of Eye Banks in Prague (IFEB), Czech Republic have broadened his expertise and experience.

As IEF’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives, he co-authored over 15 scientific articles, and one book chapter, and has presented on the concepts and practice of sustainability at several international meetings around the world. He has facilitated over 50 international workshops. Raheem was awarded the World Eye Health Leader Award by the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) in 2014 and was recognized by the National Institute of Ophthalmology (INO) and the Ministry of Health (MINSA) in Peru in September 2018 for his contribution to Public Sector eye care services in Peru and the Latin American Region.