Stijn Christiaens

Stijn Christiaens is co-founder and chief data citizen of Collibra, the data governance software company he started in Brussels, Belgium, in 2008 with Felix Van de Maele and two other researchers. In that role he runs Collibra's own data office, which handles the company's data strategy, data products and data infrastructure.

Teaching Computers What Data Means

Collibra's story started when its founders were students and researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, he told Intelligent CXO in 2022. Their research was in semantic technology, which helps computers understand and report the meaning of data. The software they built became relevant after the 2008 financial crisis, "when global banks needed to better understand what data they had in their organisations and how it was being used." The founders came from academic research, he said, "but we were also really inspired by the companies that were getting big in Silicon Valley. We wanted to see if we could achieve something in Belgium like what was happening in the US."

Taking Charge of Product and Technology

He has held a string of roles at the company. As chief operating officer he was responsible for pre-sales, post-sales and partnerships, he said on Devoteam's Data 121 podcast. In 2014, by which time many of Collibra's customers were large American financial institutions, he moved to New York City to become chief technology officer, in charge of product, the roadmap, user experience, research, education and technology partnerships. "Our company has grown consistently over 13 years, which means that you as an individual also have to grow a lot," he said.

Becoming Collibra's Chief Data Citizen

As Collibra grew, he set up its own data office, which runs the company's data work on Collibra's software and passes what it learns to customers. The title comes from a Collibra belief that "everybody is what we call a Data Citizen," meaning anyone who uses data to do their job, which is why he is not called the more usual chief data officer. He has said he likes to think of data as water: "You want it clean, trustworthy like you're drinking from the tap, but also reusable in different ways, as opposed to oil, which you burn and it's gone."

He argues that executives need to understand data the way they understand money. Just as a budget is not only the finance team's concern, he told Intelligent CXO, "it's everyone's job to ensure that your data is accessible, trusted, properly governed and compliant."