Etienne Castiaux

Etienne Castiaux is a founding member of Motive Partners, which he joined in 2016. As Founding Partner and Chief Technology Officer, he oversees the firm's technological value-creation process and helps design operational blueprints for its portfolio companies. He anchors "Motive Labs," the firm's technology-and-innovation function, with a stated focus on Digital Banking 3.0, next-generation payment hubs, distributed digital identity, core banking-as-a-service, and cybersecurity.

Before Motive, Castiaux built a long career as a fintech technologist and operator. He served as Chief of Technology & Innovation for the Enterprise Product Organization at FIS, a role he reached after FIS acquired Clear2Pay in 2014, where he had been CTO and Vice President. Earlier he was CTO of FICS and Head of Research and Technology at S1 Corporation, where he worked on pioneering Internet banking solutions. Across these roles he led the creation of multiple high-capacity, real-time transaction-processing platforms deployed across thousands of banking and payment hubs globally, and helped scale and exit several startups.

Castiaux earned an M.S. in Electronics Engineering from the University of Liège and the École Polytechnique of Mons in Belgium, graduating Summa Cum Laude, and an Executive M.B.A. from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

• Invests in and operationally supports technology-enabled companies that "power the financial services industry" — Motive Partners' core mandate as a sector specialist.
• Personal focus areas within the firm: Digital Banking 3.0, next-gen payment hubs, distributed digital identity, core banking-as-a-service, and cybersecurity.
• Motive's model blends capital with hands-on technology and operating expertise ("investors, operators and innovators"), meaning technical depth and a credible product/engineering roadmap matter as much as the commercial story.
• Stage breadth across the platform: growth equity and buyouts via Motive Capital; pre-seed to Series A fintech via Motive Ventures (which also manages the ~€150M ABN AMRO Ventures Fund).