His father, Wilhelm Heinrich Freiherr von Imhoff came from the town of Leer in northwestern Germany, a few kilometers from the Dutch border.

Van Imhoff was promoted several times within the company before being appointed colonial governor in Ceylon (Modern-day Sri Lanka) on 23 July 1736.

[citation needed] In his letters, van Imhoff expressed his surprise that the Sinhalese people had accepted such a king, considering their haughty attitude towards the Tamils of India.

However, van Imhoff saw an interesting opportunity in this turn of events and proposed to the Lords Seventeen (Heeren XVII, the directors of the VOC) that the Kingdom of Ceylon be divided in two.

In January 1739, Imhoff travelled to the port of Cochin on the south west coast of India with a view to authoring a report on the state of Dutch Malabar for the VOC's governors in Batavia.

Imhoff demanded that Marthanda Varma restore the annexed kingdom of Kayamkulam to its former ruling princess, threatening to invade Travancore should the Maharajah refuse.

[1] At the subsequent 1741 Battle of Colachel, the Dutch were routed, triggering a series of events that eventually led to the Treaty of Mavelikkara in 1753, under which both parties agreed to live in peace.

He founded a Latin school, opened the first post offices in the Dutch East Indies, built a hospital and launched a newspaper.

Van Imhoff's want of diplomacy and his lack of respect for local customs caused the colony to become embroiled in the third war of Javanese succession.