TB Thought Leadership Working Group
Deep insights. Powerful stories. Rhetorical rigor.
The TB field has more good science than it has audible voices.
This working group exists to change that. In 90 days, a cohort of 6–10 established and emerging tuberculosis researchers will sharpen their arguments, learn how to communicate their work at the highest level, and build the kind of public profile that opens doors — for their careers, their institutions, and the field. Coached individually by Paul Jensen and Dr. Paula Fujiwara, and coordinated so the group has more impact than any one person working alone.
You’re invited to join our thought leadership engine.
The opportunity
Eliminating TB is a massively ambitious goal. And it’s become more challenging, with the community facing more uncertainty and disruption than we’ve ever seen.
The TB community has never needed more of its people to step out as thought leaders. Our vision is for a movement of established and emerging leaders from across the field who are consistently earning attention, connecting with people on a human level, and opening up the opportunities we need to drive the elimination agenda forward.
But the truth is, even if we saw a dozen more thought leaders emerge tomorrow, it wouldn’t make any difference as long as they were all working in isolation. With AI being used to create a barrage of online content, and with trust in institutions at a low, the most strategic approach to thought leadership in any public health or scientific community right now is to:
This strategy would turn what we have now, which is disjointed, individual, and fairly modest thought leadership activities, into a powerful thought leadership engine built to advance progress against TB.
Across the TB community, we see a deep, deep well of valuable insights, moving stories, and bold points of view–with new research and truly exciting innovation happening every day. These are the nuts and bolts of a powerful thought leadership engine.
The purpose is to build thought leadership capabilities across the community, and then coordinate efforts so they compound.
Not 5 + 5 = 10, but 5 x 5 = 25.
What is the TB Thought Leadership Working Group?
You have ideas that could shape TB policy, attract funding, and build your profile. The gap between having them and publishing them in outlets that matter is exactly what this program closes.
The TB Thought Leadership Working Group is like an editorial council. It is a working group of established and emerging leaders in TB who are committed to building a shared practice and a shared platform for high-impact thought leadership.
The group will receive high-level guidance and coaching:
We place equal emphasis on thought, where we help participants surface their personal insights, stories, and points of view.
And leadership, where we support participants to step into more visible, public-facing roles.
We then support each other by coordinating efforts to convert that attention into progress against TB. We can prepare a pipeline of op-eds to compliment and amplify the work your organizations are already doing.
Objectives
We have two objectives for every participant. To support them in building capabilities to:
How are they different?
Creating impact means using your published work and expertise to reach the people with the power to change the trajectory of TB: funders, policymakers, clinicians, the public.
Capturing value means using thought leadership to advance your own organization as well as your personal professional aims. Building a public profile can open doors for your career, and your research program.
Both are equally essential. To be effective, we need to show impact. To be sustainable, we need to ensure participation is a valuable investment.
What we will do in the live 1-hour sessions includes strategic skills-building, actual work, and peer exchange, focused on translating your expertise, findings, and experience into visible thought leadership that moves people.
We’ll assemble the first working group with a mix of people who can bring perspectives from different vantage points. We’ll select not for age or seniority or organizational function, but for people who have a point of view and want to use it to drive progress toward ending TB. By having a mix of executives, scientists, survivors, professional advocates, early-career researchers, program people, we’ll create a supportive space for cross-functional, even inter-generational learning.
The outcome is more visible TB thought leadership, and more impact from TB thought leadership.
The TB Thought Leadership Working Group is designed for established and emerging leaders who
Are confident they have important things to say — in research, policy, clinical practice, or advocacy – and don’t have the skills, strategy or institutional support to communicate at a high level.
Want to communicate more strategically, not just more often, and build an international profile that matches the quality of their work.
Are ready to invest into an accelerator to build new capabilities.
Believe that the TB community needs better coordination and amplification of high-quality public communication.
Want to be part of an intentional structure with collaborative energy and expert facilitation.
Why we focus on Op-Eds, specifically
A journal article reports findings to other scientists. An op-ed in a major media publication does something different: it takes the meaning of those findings —
the "so what" — and puts it in front of the ministers, the funders, the editors, and the public who shape what happens next.
Most scientists never write op-eds, not because they have nothing to say, but because nobody taught them how. It is a learnable skill, and the working group is designed to teach it — practically, not theoretically.
An op-ed published in a credible news outlet is among the most powerful tools available to a scientific leader.
AND …
The value of editorial placements has increased significantly in the age of AI search.
When people turn to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Perplexity to understand TB, drug-resistant tuberculosis, or global health funding, those systems draw heavily on commentary published in credible news outlets — Reuters, the Financial Times, STAT News, Forbes, and others appear consistently among the most-cited sources across major AI platforms.
Research published in July 2025 found that journalistic content accounts for nearly half of all AI citations on time-sensitive topics. Social media posts and institutional websites, by contrast, are cited far less reliably. Publishing in the right outlets is no longer just a reputational strategy. It is how your ideas enter the information systems your stakeholders are increasingly using to form their views.
Work with leading Op-Ed experts in the health sciences
For more than two decades, our team has published hard-hitting Op-Eds for health & science leaders:
Directors and Surgeons General
Heads of state
Fortune 100 CEOs, CXOs and board chairs
Start-up founders
Government officials overseeing health & science policy
UN & agency leaders
Academic faculty and a Nobel laureate
As well as early-career researchers. No, you don’t have to be well-known to break through and get published!
Op-Eds are the most powerful medium you’re not using.
The opinion platforms we target want the most valuable viewpoints: bold, unconventional, disruptive, contrarian. Viewpoints that demonstrate real leadership that changes how we think about the most important issues that impact all of us.
Each Op-Ed you publish is an asset for casting a vision of how the world can be different. Op-Eds help you build relationships with passionate people who have a bias toward action. People who can become your partners, allies and biggest supporters.
What members do
Working Group members commit to a three-month engagement that includes:
DURATION: 90 day accelerator, July through September, 2026.
SESSIONS: Ten 60-minute sessions, combining strategy, drafting, and peer review so participants leave each session with concrete progress, not homework bloat. You’ll get the most ROI if you plan to spend a few hours a week writing.
SIZE: 6–10 participants, curated for complementary vantage points across research, policy, clinical, advocacy, and lived experience.
COACHING: Hands‑on editorial support from Paul Jensen and Dr. Paula I. Fujiwara from concept to publication: angle selection, outlet mapping, pitch development, revisions, and post‑publication amplification. Stress resilience and personal coaching from Carolyn Barnwell since greater visibility can be stressful.
OUTPUT: A coordinated editorial pipeline and a shared insight bank that fuels co‑authored pieces, source quotes, and peer review across the cohort. At least one published op‑ed per cohort within 90 days or we continue editorial support until placed in an agreed upon outlet.
What You’ll Do, Not Just Learn
We’ll teach you the exact approach we use to consistently publish Op-Eds in the world’s most visible and respected media outlets, including how to:
Avoid wasting time:
Tell the difference between good and bad Op-Ed ideas that won’t work.
Showcase the best science:
Write Op-Eds using your latest research, older research, or other people’s research.
Remove the guesswork from pitching and publishing:
Quickly decide where to publish your Op-Ed for maximum reach and visibility.
Avoid pitch email subject lines that automatically get you rejected.
Pitch with a reliable strategy that leads editors to YES.
Leverage your Op-Eds for bigger wins:
Best practices to effectively promote and disseminate your Op-Eds after publication.
Use Op-Eds to achieve your goals.
Your 90-day
roadmap to
catalytic
communication.
Crystallization
Define your unique argument, identify the audiences who need to hear it, and confirm your institutional communication parameters before a word is drafted.
& Review
Write and workshop your first complete op-ed draft using the group's structured editorial framework. Peer review is built into the session itself.
Submission
Send pitches to target outlets with a polished, submission-ready draft. Revision turnarounds are calendared in advance so editorial momentum doesn't stall.
Quote Banking
Work through editorial revisions toward publication. Extract quotable lines and findings to build a shared resource the full group can draw on for media and speaking opportunities.
& Amplification
Turn published piece(s) into sustained influence. Build your dissemination plan, delegate amplification tasks.
Meet your facilitators
Paul Martin Jensen
Co-Founder & CEO, Etalia | former Director of Policy & Strategy, The Union
Paul has spent 25 years in TB and global health — at The Union, ACTION, and consulting for leadership of the Stop TB Partnership, WHO, and the World Bank — helping drive more than $1 billion in funding for TB research and interventions.
He has worked with hundreds of researchers, advocates, and institutional leaders across dozens of countries, helping them place their ideas in the outlets that shape the field. His placement record includes the New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BMJ, STAT, Politico, Devex, Health Affairs, and more than 20 other outlets across the US, UK, EU, Africa, and Asia.
Paul is lead writer of the Global Plan to End TB and is profiled in the textbook Global Health 101.
Dr. Paula Fujiwara
Scientific Advisor, Etalia | former Scientific Director, The Union
Paula brings more than 30 years of TB research and clinical leadership to the working group. As a CDC medical officer seconded to New York City's Bureau of TB Control, she led efforts that reduced TB cases by more than two-thirds and nearly eliminated MDR-TB in the city.
She then spent 20 years at The Union in Paris, including eight years as Scientific Director, overseeing technical programs across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She has served on WHO technical advisory committees, the Global Fund board, and the Stop TB Partnership Board Executive Committee, and chaired the task force that produced the last three editions of the Global Plan to End TB. She consults for USAID, the Stop TB Partnership, and other leading global health organizations.
Carolyn Barnwell
Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer, Etalia
Carolyn Barnwell brings more than two decades of experience across science storytelling, filmmaking, and leadership development. Her work focuses on helping scientists, executives and founders build the internal foundation that high-stakes visibility requires. She has supported leaders from Adobe, NASA, LinkedIn, TED, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Accenture and Dartmouth Health.
Previously, Carolyn was the global Head of Production at the impact agency GROUND in Washington, D.C., and 6 years as a staff producer at National Geographic, where she created its first digital series featuring scientists and researchers. She went on to produce films for the World Bank, Global Fund, Biden Cancer Initiative, and philanthropic families. Carolyn was also a trainer in the Sciencetelling™ Bootcamp for researchers and conservationists around the world. She also enjoys storytelling through voice acting and has clients such as Johnson & Johnson, the American Chemical Society, Massachusetts Audubon, the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, The Union, and Patient First.
Hiring a PR firm to ghostwrite a single op-ed starts at $5,000 with no placement guarantee — and runs $25,000 or more when you want the outlets that actually move policy. Most won't touch op-eds for the scientific community at all, saying “it’s too hard.”
Working directly with us on a done-for-you basis with pitching and placement costs up to $55k for a single op-ed. This program gives you the same expert guidance, editorial coaching, and placement strategy — in a cohort of peers — for $5,000. That’s 90% of the result at a fraction of the cost.
This group also gives you something more valuable than a ghostwriter: the ability to generate, pitch, and place your own op-eds — with expert editorial coaching at every step from Paul Jensen, who has a 100% placement rate for health and life-sciences Op-Eds in outlets such as the New York Times, The Guardian, the Financial Times, and 20+ others. You leave with a published piece, a repeatable process, and a voice that no agency or AI can replicate.
The founding cohort investment: $5,000 pay-in-full, or two installment payments of $2,750.
We start July 8th!
