The Executive Committee is responsible for ensuring the achievement of the Think Tank’s vision, mission and mandate.

Specific functions of the EXCO include:

• Providing overall leadership and direction to technical Task Teams (Refer to section 1.6 for more information on Task Teams).
• Ratifying TB Think Tank outputs (policy briefs to the NDoH, annual reports to stakeholders, presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals) prior to dissemination.
• Determining and/or ratifying selection of contractors to undertake commissioned work.

Professor Norbert Ndjeka is the Chief Director of TB Control and Management at the National Department of Health in South Africa. Previously, he served as director of drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV. Under his leadership, there has been a decline in the number of drug-resistant TB cases in South Africa and a remarkable improvement in the proportion of patients successfully treated for drug-resistant TB.

He is a family physician specialist interested in tuberculosis and HIV. He holds a diploma in clinical management of HIV and a diploma in management of health institutions. He is the author of numerous articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals. He has coordinated and drafted treatment guides and training modules for drug-resistant tuberculosis in several African countries.

He is currently the chair of the African Green Light Committee (Afro-GLC), a committee that advises WHO on how to manage drug-resistant tuberculosis. He is also president of the END TB SADC Committee. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Cape Town in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the fight against drug-resistant tuberculosis locally and globally. He is appointed as an Honorary Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town (South Africa).

Dr. Priashni Subrayen currently serves as Technical Director TB at The Aurum Institute which is a global healthcare solutions company and is also the head of the TB Think Tank Secretariat. She is currently also chairing the newly formed Data System and Innovations Task Team to ensure TB Data systems are responsive to TB programme needs. Having qualified as a medical doctor in 2002, she has more than 15 years of experience working in public health in South Africa and abroad. After acquiring a formal business education, she developed a keen interest in systems thinking, process re-engineering and continuous quality improvement which has been her specialised area for the past twelve years with TB HIV. The work in TB includes technical and clinical support to the Department of Health (DoH) at National, Provincial, District and facility level with a focus on data analytics for evidence-based improvement and design of interventions. She is responsible for the overall execution of the TB Think Tank’s Goals and Objectives and the management of the Secretariat.

Nolwazi Nkosi is a motivated and results-oriented Project Coordinator with a Master’s degree on Sociology from Rhodes University. The NGO sector is Nolwazi’s area of expertise. She has the experience working on HIV Prevention Programmes for key populations in Ekhurleni District and the Covid Emergency Grant Pilot Program in Buffalo City. Her interests include sexual reproductive health for adolescent girls and young women, particularly in rural areas, and changes in social norms. Eager to learn more about TB and its complexities.

Dr Lucy Connell holds medical and postgraduate degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, specialising in epidemiology and biostatistics. With a 30-year career dedicated largely to public health, she has focused on integrating HIV and TB programmes in South Africa, developing guidelines, and training multidisciplinary teams. Dr Connell served as the TB Programme Lead at Right to Care for a decade, and previously consulted for government, mining companies, international agencies, and non-profits. She has extensive experience in designing and leading health programme evaluations and research. She conducted the independent evaluation of the use of digital chest X-ray with AI assessment to screen for TB in primary health care facilities in 6 pilot districts in SA. Following this work, she facilitated the expert group that developed the new NDOH Standard Operational Procedure and algorithms for facility and community TB screening using digital chest X-ray and AI for TB screening. Most recently, Lucy collaborated in two research projects for the NDOH, on the status of the NIMDR-TB programme and the status of decentralisation of DR-TB services in South Africa.

Dr Connell is passionate about understanding complex health systems and values collaborative, idea-driven teamwork.

Erika Mohr-Holland is an epidemiologist with a Master’s in Public Health and Epidemiology from Boston University, deeply committed to advancing TB research, advocacy, and health equity. With over 12 years supporting the South African TB Programme, she currently works for the City of Cape Town, providing epidemiologic oversight and supporting surveillance across primary healthcare programs. Her work focuses on integrating digital tools into clinical practice to enhance patient management and disease monitoring. Erika has co-led national TB forums, contributed to implementation guidelines, and published several academic papers. As an active member of TB Proof, she advocates for social justice, stigma reduction, and equitable resource distribution for persons with TB. Passionate about addressing structural drivers of disease—colonialism, inequity, and climate change—she champions Global South leadership in the TB response and is committed to closing care gaps through integrated prevention, mental health, and substance use support for vulnerable communities.

Dr Karen Du Preez completed her medical training at the University of Pretoria and joined the Desmond Tutu TB Centre (DTTC) in 2008 to follow her passion to improve child health in lower-middle income countries. Currently, Karen holds a senior researcher position at the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at Stellenbosch University (SU) and leads paediatric TB epidemiology and implementation science research at the DTTC. Since joining the DTTC, she successfully completed an operational research fellowship at the Union, a distance learning MSc degree in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine cum laude, and a PhD at Stellenbosch University. She has also been a member of the World Health Organisation Child and Adolescent TB working group since 2012.

The work of the TB TT is operationalised and executed through Task Teams which are established in alignment with national priorities.

Currently, the TB Think Tank has 5 Task Teams as outlined below: