BT team wins Experiential Treat prize at SGX Orb Awards 

A TEAM from The Business Times (BT) on Tuesday (Sep 5) took home the Experiential Treat award at this year’s Singapore Exchange’s Orb Awards, which recognise excellence in financial news and content.  

The team consists of Kenneth Lim, deputy news editor for the paper’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) coverage; ESG correspondents Janice Lim and Wong Pei Ting; visual journalist Hannah Kwah; executive artist Hyrie Rahmat; and web developer Quah Kai Yuan. 

The team’s winning piece that snagged the prize, in what the exchange termed a “popular category”, was a piece entitled “The rise of the Singapore CSO”. 

The piece delved into the wave of appointments of chief sustainability officers (CSOs) over the past two years. An analysis by the team found that a majority, or 26, of Singapore’s 50 largest primary-listed companies had a CSO or CSO-equivalent on board. 

Through a mix of text, graphics and illustrations, the piece offered readers insights into the backgrounds of the people appointed to these roles, as well as the skills they brought to the table. 

The panel of judges said they felt the illustration had a “very clear message”, and commented that they liked the graphic representation. 

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BT editor Chen Huifen said the story package that bagged the award was the result of “a collaborative effort among many people in the newsroom, marrying ideas from journalists and an interactive visual team”.

“The same package also received an internal award from BT editors recently. The fundamental purpose of that creative work was to serve our readers and to showcase our visual journalism capabilities, so the latest recognition is the icing on the cake,” she added.

Commenting on the win, BT’s Kenneth Lim said: “It’s always encouraging to be recognised for our work. We’re passionate at BT about explaining complex issues to readers, and sustainability is the complex issue of our time. We’ll definitely be doing more of these.”

The Experiential Treat category, in which BT’s team came out tops, is for all things creative and experiential. The winner is the one who delivers a compelling story while offering viewers an experience to remember, SGX said on its website. 

In this, the sixth edition of the Orb Awards, the Story of the Year prize went to Prisca Ang of The Straits Times for her story, “Singapore bank bonds more volatile amid fallout, but lenders not hit hard”. 

The publication’s Ven Sreenivasan bagged the Hidden Gem award, which seeks to honour the best feature or analysis of an under-covered stock listed on SGX, for his commentary titled “Samudera and other good mid-cap stocks need some love from the market”. 

A second Hidden Gem award was given to Jovi Ho and Khairani Afiifi Noordin from The Edge Singapore, for their piece, “Digital does not mean different”. 

The Special Category award, which this year sought original work from students on how market participants in Asia are capturing the future of finance, went to Benjamin Brown from the University of London for his Citywire Germany video titled “Industry under fire: Chinese tech stocks”.

The Simple Sum took home TheGoTo prize, the award for the best digital platform that enhances financial education.

Teo Ai June, head of marketing and communications at SGX, said: “We are delighted by the quality of submissions across a growing variety of formats – congratulations to all our winners and finalists. This year, we also welcomed works from students through our Special Category, as a form of recognition and encouragement for young talent interested in the world of finance and investing. 

“We look forward to pushing the boundaries with our media and content partners in the Orb Awards’ mission of ‘Connecting Perspectives and Inspiring Conversations’.”