Viswa Sadasivan
IHFS EXCELLENCE AWARD FOR MEDIA / BROADCAST JOURNALISIM
VISWA SADASIVAN is regarded as one of Singapore’s influential thinkers, an opinion leader and advocate of its evolving socio-political space.
Viswa is Founder and Managing Consultant of Strategic Moves – a corporate strategy and leadership consultancy.
Viswa served with distinction as a Nominated Member of Parliament.
Viswa started his career in broadcasting and was a top-rated TV news and current affairs anchor in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a household name and had a strong following. He was the presenter of Singapore’s first current affairs programme called Feedback. It was the highest rated English language programme on TV. Its rating was higher than movies and entertainment programmes! The public trusted Viswa. In 1993, as the Senior Controller of Current Affairs programmes, Viswa launched another popular programme called Talking Point and became its first presenter. Today, after nearly 30 years it’s still a top-rated current affairs show. In 1988, Viswa helped revolutionise the TV coverage of the General Election. He designed, produced and directed one of the most ambitious polling day programmes – a 6-hour “live” coverage with13 outside broadcast stations involving more than 1,400 personnel. He also initiated and produced the first ever TV debate between the PAP (represented by Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong) and the Opposition parties (represented by JB Jeyaretnam and Chiam See Tong). Viswa was also part of the team that mooted the idea of TV coverage of Parliamentary debates. In 1986, he launched the programme, Today in Parliament and was its presenter.
Over the years, Viswa has interviewed several leaders on TV and on stage. They include the late prime ministers Tungku Abdul Rahman, Lee Kuan Yew, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and President Barack Obama. More recently, in 2015, Viswa started IQ [Inconvenient Questions], a video- based socio-political online site that aimed to be the conduit for honest engagement of newsmakers and inspirational Singaporeans. Viswa was the Chief Editor and anchor. In 2015, IQ hosted a total of 22 studio-based no-holds-barred debates with an audience and expert panelists. He initiated and hosted Singapore’s ground-breaking spontaneous debate between representatives of several political parties contesting in the 2015 and 2020 General Elections. In May 2021, IQ went international. IQ International or IQi hosted 11 monthly “live” discussion on critical topics of global interest such as the civil strife in Myanmar, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, plight of indigenous persons, US pullout of Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine, and the LGBTQ+ issue. IQi gained a respectable following. The speakers are experts from all over the world.
In April of 2024, IQ was relaunched. Its inaugural one-on-one interview was with former PAP MP, Inderjit Singh. It garnered over 60,000 views on YouTube alone. IQ hopes to provide refreshing and honest perspectives in the lead-up to the next General Election.
Viswa has a Master of Public Administration degree from then-Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He topped his class in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution in Harvard Law School.