Leslie Lopez, a Malaysian citizen, has reported extensively on political and economic affairs in the region since the mid-1980s.
After brief stints with two local newspapers in Malaysia, Mr Lopez, 60, served as the Reuters correspondent covering Malaysia and Brunei before moving to Jakarta as the Indonesian bureau chief for the Business Times of Singapore. He returned to Malaysia to head The Asian Wall Street Journal news bureau in Kuala Lumpur in 1996. During his 10 years with this publication, Mr Lopez won awards for his reporting on the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the aftermath of Asia’s deadly financial tsunami. He also led the paper’s regional coverage on the growing threat from Islamic terrorists, breaking dozens of exclusive pieces that have helped bring greater understanding of the problems posed by religious militancy.
Mr Lopez joined The Straits Times of Singapore as the paper’s Senior Regional Correspondent in early 2007. His coverage of regional political and economic issues won him the award for Best Story for three years running. In 2009, Singapore Press Holdings, the island state’s largest news organisation, named him Journalist of the Year.
In 2012, Mr Lopez joined The Edge media group to push the organisation’s regional presence through The Edge Review, a weekly all-digital political and business publication specialising in key news developments in Southeast Asia. The Edge Review quickly stamped its mark as a premier publication, wining top awards for its business and political reporting on the region from the prestigious Society of Publishers Asia (Sopa).
Mr Lopez, who lives in Kuala Lumpur and travels regularly on reporting assignments, is currently writing for Singapore’s CNA Digital.
