This week on Leaders and Legends Felix Van de Maele, CEO of high-tech unicorn Collibra, joined Aileen Black to share his journey and leadership advice for start up and high growth companies.

Among the highlights, Van de Maele stressed the importance to “prioritize hiring an executive team that aligns with your values.” He further encouraged business leaders that if you don’t make decisions that align with your values they are just “words on the wall.”

There is no silver bullet on the decisions you make, he stressed to the next generation of start up CEOs.

“How you make decisions and what decisions you make will have different context depending what stage you are in. When you start out you are somewhat pirates and just trying to find ways to survive as you grow; when you become a larger business and as your customer base expands you need to develop into a disciplined Navy,” he shared. “The important part is the discipline this will help you grow and execute well.”

When asked about leadership in times of crisis Van de Maele stressed the need for communications. Collibra is located in New York City at the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in the U.S. He said “Communications is key, people are concerned about the economy, health and over all well being. Leaders must show they have empathy and passion for their challenges. But most importantly be there for your team and be decisive on the way through it”.

When asked about the changing technology landscape with the advances in Cloud Computing, AI, and 5G, he pointed out that at the end of the day “Data will be foundational to the advances to all of those technologies.”

“Marc Andreessen has a saying that software is eating the world. I believe data is eating the world.,” he said. “Data is like water. It is valuable, it needs to be clean and available to everyone. Data is the new oil and will fuel the outcomes of these technology advances. Collibra is a data intelligence company. Data intelligence, it is the future and it is now”.

In Van de Maele’s closing comments he shared his advice for the next generation of start up CEOs: Have the right mindset. The mindset needs to be on growth. Be willing to constantly reinvent yourself, push yourself out of your comfort zone. Continue to learn. Push yourself to learn all the time

Felix Van de Maele is a founder and CEO of the unicorn company Collibra. Van de Maele has led Collibra for more than 10 years of record growth and is responsible for global business strategy. Prior to cofounding Collibra, he served as a researcher at the Semantics Technology and Applications Research Laboratory (STAR-Lab) in Brussels. Van de Maele was named the EY Technology Entrepreneur of the Year in New York.

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