Former Yoast co-owner Marieke van de Rakt followed her husband Joost de Valk when she parted ways with the popular Yoast WordPress SEO plugin company. The move heralds a new era in ownership of Newfold Digital.

Yoast SEO – Marieke van de Rakt

Arguably one of the most popular and important plugins in the world, SEO plugin Yoast was founded by Joost de Valk in 2010 and co-owned with his wife Marieke van de Rakt.

Marieke van de Rakt has held many positions at Yoast including Managing Director, CEO, Creative Marketing Manager and her most recent position in the company as Chief Growth Officer.

She guided the company through a period of remarkable growth as it grew from a bootstrap plugin to a multi-million dollar company with over 140 employees.

Her departure follows the sale of Yoast to leading web presence solutions provider, Newfold Digital, in August 2021.

This milestone is part of a steady transition away from the original team of Marieke van de Rakt, Joost de Valk and his younger brother Thijs de Valk to a team as part of Newfold Digital.

Newfold Digital is home to top brands like Bluehost, HostGator, Web.com and Network Solutions.

Yoast SEO corporate culture remains

Although the company is transitioning to new leadership, many of the leaders remain with the company to ensure the company values ​​nurtured by the original team remain as part of its DNA.

Sam Alderson, Head of Marketing at Yoast SEO, commented that Yoast will continue to be the same company that people around the world are familiar with.

Chaya Oosterbroek, COO of Yoast, and Derek Herman, CTO, will remain part of Yoast’s leadership.

Sam made the following observations about the future of Yoast SEO to Search Engine Journal:

“Chaya and Derek still run the company together as our leadership team.

We also have a strong leadership team that supports them and is focused on what this next phase of Yoast looks like.

Each of them is a strong believer in WordPress and open source and will continue to drive our SEO for All mission.

On this team we have Taco, who is heavily involved in and very popular with the WordPress community.

Jono, our Head of SEO, who has over 10 years of experience in the SEO world and is also very involved in the core of WordPress, continues at Yoast.

As Head of Branding, I will also work to continue the Yoast culture and our core values.

Marieke is leaving us in an excellent place and has been sharing her knowledge with the team since taking over.

We have big plans and everyone is excited to see what this new phase of Yoast will look like.”

The official Yoast announcement states:

“While we will be sad to see Marieke go, it is a positive sign of the stability of the company and brand that she can do so safely and happily.

Marieke has spent the last few months working alongside our teams and making sure her wisdom and vision are passed on successfully. “

New phase for Yoast SEO

There is no doubt that the company culture of promoting open source continues through their contributions to the WordPress core and the development of the world’s leading SEO plugin.

Featured image by Shutterstock/Gabriele Maltinti