Robert Jacobi (US)
Chief Experience Officer at Blackwall
Formerly Director of WordPress at Cloudways, where he played a key role in its $350 million acquisition by DigitalOcean
Founded Arc Technology Group and served as President Emeritus of Open Source Matters (Joomla!)
Based in Chicago, Illinois, US
Meet Robert at:
CMS Connect 26
Presentation: TBD
Dates: August 4 - 5
Location: Montreal
About Robert Jacobi
Robert Jacobi is an open-source executive, strategist, and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience spanning web hosting, security, and content management. He currently serves as Chief Experience Officer at Blackwall, where he connects the company's security message and solutions with partners, customers, investors, and the wider security and open-source communities.
Robert built his reputation running large swaths of the open web — colleagues note he once ran roughly 3.5% of the internet. As Director of WordPress at Cloudways, he played a central role in the company's $350 million acquisition by DigitalOcean. Earlier in his career, he founded Arc Technology Group, the leading Joomla consultancy in North America for more than 15 years, serving clients including Microsoft, Abbott Laboratories, and Eli Lilly, and later served as Executive Vice President at Perfect Dashboard, which was acquired by WP Engine in 2020.
A well-known and respected international speaker, Robert has held numerous open-source leadership roles, including President Emeritus of Open Source Matters (the organization behind Joomla), contributor to Make WordPress Hosting, and participant in ICANN At-Large and the Internet Infrastructure Coalition.
About Blackwall
Blackwall is a security infrastructure company, engineered by engineers for engineers, focused on protecting web ecosystems from automated threats while optimizing performance, operational costs, and revenue for hosting environments. Backed by leading investors including Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures, and others, the company delivers advanced defenses that strengthen the security, resilience, and efficiency of hosting providers, cloud platforms, and enterprise networks.
Formerly known as BotGuard, Blackwall rebranded after raising a €45 million Series B round led by Dawn Capital. Today, the company protects millions of sites and applications worldwide against malicious bots, crawlers, and scrapers.