Kim Mateus, the current brand director at Via Satellite and CyberSat, is a well-known figure in B2B media and adjacent markets, including the newsletter industry and niche B2C media. She’s had a fascinating career so far, serving as a journalist, a chronicler of proven digital media models, as sales director at an email automation company during the last two decades.
During that time, Kim has been a frequent presence at industry events and association meetings, earning a reputation as someone with both deep media expertise and a willingness to share her insights.
We met Kim at the BIMS 2025 conference in New Orleans last month, where our Chief Growth Officer, Bill Bell, sat in with Kim on a terrific roundtable hosted by January Spring. Based on that interaction, we were convinced that our Fox Tales audience would benefit from knowing Kim better. Here’s our conversation.
Fox Tales: Tell us about your current role at Access Intelligence. What are your priorities and opportunities?
Kim Mateus: I’m a brand director in our Satellite Group, with full P&L responsibility for Via Satellite and CyberSat. Via Satellite is one of Access Intelligence’s largest media brands, supported 100% by sponsorship and advertising revenue, with 35% of its revenue coming from marketing services. I feel lucky my team had this figured out before I arrived, because budgets for long-term, multi-asset demand generation are significantly higher than budgets for branding and thought leadership. We have a well balanced portfolio of offerings, but we see the highest renewal rates on our marketing services. CyberSat, a 450-person live event in its 9th year, focuses on the cybersecurity of satellites and space and is held in the D.C. metro area in the fall. It includes both an unclassified program and a classified program, which is restricted to government and industry officials with top secret/sensitive compartmented information clearance.
Kim Mateus.
In 2024, my first full year running these brands, my team and I hit our budget on Via Satellite, and we grew revenue on CyberSat by 24%, so I’ve got a big hill to climb to keep that momentum going in 2025—but I feel good that we’ve laid the groundwork for continued growth. Despite the current uncertainty in the U.S. government, which remains the biggest customer of satellite technology and services, cyber threats to our space and satellite systems—systems the average American relies on more than they realize—grow by the minute. A meeting like CyberSat is a critical forum and was the first of its kind for government and industry to collaborate on the technical and strategic means to thwart these very real, and potentially very scary cyber attacks.
Fox Tales: You spent a good bit of time at Mequoda, holding a diverse set of executive positions. Tell us about the value of that earlier exposure to the media world.
Mateus: It was wild. It was my first real job out of college, and I was employee number-two, working for a serial entrepreneur who was committed to figuring out why—even as early as 2004—some legacy publishers were thriving in the digital age while others were (and still are, in some cases) faltering. As a fresh journalism graduate, my mission was to interview everyone our founder knew in his nearly three decades of working in and for the publishing industry to find out what was and was not working in the early transition from print to digital, and to document and share that intel with the community.
That documentation ultimately led to a framework for successful digital publishing and marketing for media brands, which we distributed and taught through our own daily publication and live events. Mequoda’s media business—which I ultimately ran—was the front door to the more lucrative consulting, tech, and marketing-services business we built for niche B2C and B2B brands around the world.
And while Mequoda may seem like my first media experience, the reality is that at 11 years old I had a paper route, and by 13 I was spending my summer selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door in the suburbs near my hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts. That early connection to newspapers, combined with my innate and relentless pursuit of truth and justice, inspired me to study journalism in college. I still miss the smell and feel of reading the paper every day from middle school all the way through college as a commuter student.
Fox Tales: You began with content roles in media. My belief is content experience makes better media executives. Do you agree, and if yes, why is that the case?
Mateus: 100%, yes. You could say this about most industries—that those who start out on the product side, working closely with and understanding what makes for good, sellable product, often go on to be stronger executives. That couldn’t be more true in media.
Editors are trained to be audience-first. They don’t think in terms of what the company wants to say—they think about what the audience needs to know. They’re wired to ask tough questions, cut through jargon, and hold the line on quality. Those instincts are incredibly valuable in leadership, especially when you’re trying to build something that lasts.
Having that editorial background also gives you a deeper appreciation for what good content looks like—not just creatively, but strategically. You understand how to use it to grow, differentiate, and commercialize without compromising what makes it meaningful. And let’s face it—editors are a particular kind of thoughtful. Naturally skeptical, protective, allergic to fluff. If you haven’t been in their shoes, I think it’s harder to lead them well or earn their trust—especially now, when they’re expected to think more commercially than ever before. Having once been in that role helps me navigate that balance with more empathy—and, I hope, with more credibility.
Fox Tales: You’ve been involved with SIPA and Renewd. Those organizations have member companies that are different from B2B media companies like Access Intelligence. What can be learned from one to the other?
Mateus: Nothing makes me feel dorkier and more gleeful than being around my longtime SIPA and now Renewd friends. We make jokes no one else would—about churn rates, paywalls, subscription KPIs—usually in ways that are hard to explain on paper. But the real thread that connects SIPA/Renewd companies with B2B media brands like those in SIIA is this: We all serve niche audiences. Whether you’re charging them directly or monetizing through advertising and sponsorships, the job is the same—become essential to a specific group of people, know them better than anyone else, and serve them with content that’s indispensable.
The revenue models may differ—one side skews reader-pays, the other advertiser-pays—but the smartest operators don’t view those approaches as mutually exclusive. In fact, the most resilient media businesses today are diversified: some content is paid, some is sponsor-supported, and the focus is on matching the right content with the right monetization path. At the end of the day, it’s about creating value, not chasing volume.
It’s also worth noting how email has remained the heartbeat of both models. At Mequoda, we were preaching the power of email capture and daily cadence back in 2005. It was about owning your audience, not renting it—and using email as both a distribution tool and a feedback loop. That same thinking still holds up today. First-party data, direct access, segmentation—it all stems from a strong email strategy, no matter what side of the revenue coin you’re playing.
Fox Tales: How’d your business do in Q1, and what’s your outlook for the year ahead?
Mateus: In Q1 and through April, Via Satellite is ahead of budget by 8%. We’ve still got some sizable gaps to fill, and I couldn’t have predicted the current level of chaos and uncertainty we’re all facing when I built the budget last fall—but I’m optimistic. There’s growing and well-documented momentum behind the government shifting from building tech in-house to buying more from commercial partners. That trend should directly benefit many of our clients, and historically, when they thrive, we do too.
Fox Tales: You were at BIMS and perhaps talked business with Bill Bell. What were some takeaways from the event?
Mateus: It felt great to be back at BIMS after a seven-year hiatus—and surprisingly, it was my first time meeting Bill! We sat at a roundtable about sponsored content, and I think I made him laugh. The conversation turned to webinars, and I noted that while we do everything we can to guide clients on recruiting the right speakers and building content that resonates with our highly technical audience, sometimes they ignore our advice and put on a shitty webinar. And when they do, well, that reflects on them, right? Riiiggghhht? I looked around the overflowing table and immediately realized after seeing people’s faces how far to the dark side I’d apparently gone—and I said out loud that I felt ashamed of this, especially as a former editor. But the table, including Bill, laughed, assured me not to be so hard on myself, but agreed: Yes, even if we can’t always prevent it, a bad webinar does reflect on the media brand. Gulp.
So thank you, BIMS fam, for keeping me honest. I learned a lot while I was there. It was incredibly gratifying to see so many smart people doing fascinating work—like the folks at GovExec TV (wow), my friend Rafael from Human Capital Institute innovating for the last 20 years and always inspiring me to stretch my brain, and the trio from IronMarkets, BlackBox, and Alignment Advisors. I could’ve listened to them all day.
Attending BIMS reminded me what this industry has always been great at—and what we can’t afford to forget: Stay true to your audience, listen to their needs, deliver what they want, and retain and hire smart, passionate people who can build and market the kinds of products your audience didn’t even know they needed. Above all, put quality content and data first. And keep going to events like BIMS to stay connected to fun, generous people who’ll challenge you, inspire you, and help you sharpen your execution muscle—because at the end of the day, that’s what separates good from great.