Building a Global Enterprise Software Company from Belgium: Felix Van de Maele, CEO of Collibra (Part 1)

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Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Felix Van de Maele: I’m from Belgium. I grew up in Ostend, which is a small town at the seaside. I started studying computer science in Brussels at the University of Brussels where I did a Master’s in Computer Science. That was for four years, which I thought was way too short. I really wanted to study abroad so I did another Master’s in Software Engineering where I studied in France for six months and studied for five months in Argentina.

Sramana Mitra: What did you do in Argentina?

Felix Van de Maele: It was an interesting program specifically for software engineering. The second five months was for a Master’s thesis. The idea was that the people from Europe were going to either South America or Australia.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. I am married to a Belgian and have spent a lot of time in Argentina. When did you finish all these different programs? What year was that?

Felix Van de Maele: I finished my second Master’s in Software Engineering in 2007. During that time, I was really thinking of what to do next year. In my mind, I had four options. One was, I could start doing a Ph.D. because the last year, I was also doing part-time research at the University of Brussels on semantic technology. I could go work at a bank, become a consultant, or start something myself.

Now, it’s different but at that time, there was media or attention to startups and venture capital, especially in Belgium. I was reading a book called Founders at Work of Silicon Valley. I thought, “If they can do it, why shouldn’t I, at least, try?” That led to the idea of starting Collibra. The three other founders whom I discussed the idea with were already doing their Ph.D.’s in Brussels on semantic technology.

I figured that it doesn’t make any sense to start a Ph.D. So I did another year of MBA in General Management to, at least, have a little bit of business background. During that year, I wrote the business plan and started Collibra in December 2008.

Sramana Mitra: What was the concept that you were going to start Collibra with?

Felix Van de Maele: It probably goes against the best practices that you really need to have a problem that you want to solve and that you’re intimate with. We did not do that. We were doing research on very interesting technologies at that time. There was the semantic web, which was a big thing at that time. We were the primary research institutions in Europe focusing on that. We really started with technology looking for a problem to fix, which isn’t ideal.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Building a Global Enterprise Software Company from Belgium: Felix Van de Maele, CEO of Collibra
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