About Joost de Valk

Hi! I’m Joost de Valk, an internet entrepreneur from the Netherlands.

I’m married to Marieke; we have four children and live in Wijchen, the Netherlands.

I have a long history in digital marketing and WordPress. I am the founder of Yoast, best known for its Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress.

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 companies like 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. On holidays, Marieke and I love spending time in our holiday home in Tuscany or traveling to other places in the world.

Work with me?

I reserve a portion of my time for digital / growth consultancy with companies we don’t have an investment in. I can advise you and your company on your (digital) product direction, your search/SEO strategy, and how you can leverage the open web for your company.

Would you be interested in that? Please fill out my contact form.