I have worn a couple of different hats in my time at Yoast. First, for almost 9 years, I was the CEO, then I became Chief Product Officer when my wife Marieke took over as CEO. We sold Yoast to Newfold Digital in August of 2021, after which I became Head of WordPress Strategy at Newfold for a while. I then came back for a 6-month stint as interim CTO (because they were suddenly without one) in 2022-2023. I finally left the company in April 2023.
When we left Yoast, Marieke and I started investing through our company, Emilia Capital. We invest in companies that play at least partly in the digital space (and often in WordPress). Because of that, I'm on the board of PatchStack and Atarim. We also started our own new company; we're working hard on Progress Planner.
I founded Yoast in 2010 after working as a digital marketing consultant in several different companies. I've worked on some of the biggest SEO projects in the world, like the Guardian's site migration from .co.uk to theguardian.com.
In my spare time, I can often be found coaching kids' soccer at AWC, where I'm also a board member. This is also why I started working on Rondo. On holidays, Marieke and I love spending time in our holiday home in Tuscany or traveling to other places in the world.