Karsten Samland

Karsten Samland is Head of Partnerships for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at Substack. He works with authors, creators, media companies, and journalists to build sustainable business models for independent journalism and creative work.

His career began nearly 20 years ago in journalism. After completing an internship at Hessischer Rundfunk, he worked as a reporter for ARD and later as an editor and investigative journalist at BuzzFeed Germany and BuzzFeed News. Among other things, he focused on exposing disinformation there.

In 2019, he joined TikTok Germany and became the first local employee in the strategic media partnerships division. Over the next seven years, he held several leadership roles, most recently as Head of Publishers for the German-speaking markets. Together with his team, he developed partnerships with media companies and supported publishers and their creators in growing their presence on the short-form video platform.

Since August 2026, he has been responsible for Substack’s growth in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. His work focuses on how to develop a sustainable business model from journalistic and creative work. He sees direct relationships between creators and their audiences as a promising model for the future of media.