Walter Fernandez has been a journalist and editor for 30 years.

He started out at The Straits Times and is now the Editor-in-Chief of CNA (Channel NewsAsia).

He has held senior leadership roles in television, radio, print and digital newsrooms.

In 2020, he led CNA to the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) Channel of the Year award. In 2022, CNA was named Global Winner of the Best News Website by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Apart from driving content strategy across all platforms, Walter has also shaped a set of clear and coherent editorial values, led the digital transformation of operations, built up meaningful audience engagement and delivered compelling and trusted coverage at the global stage.

The result: CNA has been ranked the most trusted news source in Singapore by the Reuters Institute for Journalism which is based at Oxford University for five consecutive years (2019-2023).

Since taking over its leadership, CNA has also won 500 international awards for outstanding content.

From a local-centric channel, CNA has entrenched itself as a source of trusted news and high quality documentaries across Asia and the global stage.

In 2024, as part of CNA’s Silver Jubilee, Walter led the launch of a new CNA Bahasa Indonesia website; debuted a new CNA documentary-centric channel in North America and Europe; and expanded CNA’s presence across China.

Walter also oversees broadcast engineering for Mediacorp as well as AI Strategy and Solutions for the newsroom. In 2021, he took on the concurrent role of Chief Sustainability Officer for Mediacorp.

In 2022, he was appointed to the New York Festivals’ TV and Film Awards advisory board.
 
Walter has significant public policy experience. This dates back to when he worked as a research officer to Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, helping him to pen his first memoir.

He has also served as a director on several boards including the Civil Service College, Maritime Port Authority and Singapore Land Authority.

He currently sits on the board of directors of the National Environment Agency (NEA).