Stijn Christiaens

TLDR

Stijn Christiaens co-founded Collibra, Belgium's first SaaS Unicorn in data governance, and has since become an active angel investor with more than 10 investments and an LP position in Syndicate One.

Overview

Stijn co-founded Collibra alongside Felix Van De Maele, building it into a globally recognized data governance platform and one of Belgium's most important tech success stories. Collibra reached Unicorn status and serves large enterprises worldwide. Stijn departed from the company in 2021.

After leaving Collibra, Stijn has been active as an angel investor, backing more than 10 startups across the Belgian and European ecosystem. He is an LP in Syndicate One, the Brussels-based angel syndicate, placing him in a connected position across the Belgian investor community.

Career History

• Co-founder & Chief Data Citizen at Collibra (Feb 2021 - Present)
• Co-founder & CTO at Collibra (Sep 2015 - Feb 2021)
• Co-founder & COO at Collibra (May 2008 - Aug 2015)
• Researcher at STARLab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Sep 2005 - Dec 2008)
• Software Engineer at De Clercq Engineering (Sep 2004 - Sep 2005)

Education

• Postgraduate, Industrial Corporate Governance, Ehsal Brussel (2006 - 2007)

Notes

> 21K+ followers on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Voice

Posting style: Short thought-leader format. Consistent single-theme drumbeat around "context" as the moat for AI. Links to articles. Lower engagement but highly focused intellectual positioning. Near-daily posting in recent weeks.

Key themes: Context engineering as a business process, data governance for AI, agentic AI and competitive differentiation, Collibra mission around trusted context and "the human premium"

Avg engagement: 24 likes, 2 comments

Notable post: "Context engineering as a business process", 36 likes and 5 comments.