I’m Marieke van de Rakt. I am Group Head of Brand & Community at Your.Online, a European group of hosting brands. Together with my husband Joost, I am a partner at Emilia Capital, our investment company.
Teaching
I teach online marketing at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Venlo. I love being in front of a class. AI is changing how students learn and how we teach. I write about that on this blog.
Local politics
I am a council member for PRO Wijchen, in my hometown Wijchen.
Captain Planet Foundation
I am a member of the Board of Advisors of the Captain Planet Foundation.
Yoast
I co-founded Yoast. From 2019 to 2021 I was its CEO. After the sale to Newfold Digital, I stayed on until 2023. Growing a company is great fun, but it can be hard too. As Yoast grew fast, we had to keep finding new ways to organize ourselves. My biggest challenge was to keep our culture as inviting and inspiring as it had always been.
Research
Before all this, I obtained a PhD in social sciences. You can find my dissertation here and my other publications here.