Samantha Matsumoto joins LION Publishers as our Community Engagement Manager

Samantha will facilitate peer learning and relationship building across our LION membership.

We regularly hear from our LION members about how valuable it is to connect with other founders and news leaders who are trying to build sustainable independent news businesses. Learning from peers’ experiences, combating leader loneliness and commiserating with others who are up against similar challenges are core to LION’s membership offerings, and we’re thrilled to have Samantha Matsumoto designing and executing a strategy to help us better do this work. Her work will include:

• Managing LION’s in-person events, including this year’s Southeast News Sustainability Meetup and LION Awards Ceremony
• Facilitating connections and conversations in our News Entrepreneur Community
• Designing more peer-to-peer learning opportunities for members based on their questions and emerging needs

Samantha was most recently at Minnesota Public Radio, where she worked on the daily call-in talk show “MPR News with Angela Davis.” Prior to that she was a producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting’s talk show “Think Out Loud,” where she worked closely with Oregon community leaders to strengthen relationships between the community and OPB. She is also a former board member of the Asian American Journalists Association Portland chapter. 

Samantha is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she loves to swim and paddleboard in the state’s many lakes. As a Pacific Northwest transplant, she is enjoying exploring the Midwest. 

Please join us in welcoming Samantha to the LION team — you can reach her at [email protected].