
Lead data steward how to#
It then developed a formal methodology that included interviewing business areas to discover their data-related problems, determining business value of potential solutions, defining reporting categories, and determining how to track data issues. Navient started out with a pilot project showing how strong Data Stewardship that ensured data field accuracy could lead to better returns on email campaigns. “Speak their language,” she urged, equating those processes with impacts on revenue, costs, and risk. To keep Data Stewards engaged with the program, Deemer said, it’s important that they understand the processes of Data Governance as part of the overall Data Management strategy – specifically, the value those processes bring to the business. “One person told us it’s the first time in 20 years that anyone outside their division has thanked them for doing something within the company.” “It’s unbelievable the emails we get back,” she said. Those who are superstars, for instance, get hand written thank you notes. Continuous mentoring of Data Stewards also comes in the form of encouraging their communication between business and IT areas, including bringing project-driven governance-related issues back to the Council.ĭata Stewards also are reviewed annually – and, Deemer noted, it’s the little things that count here. To that end, Navient has put in place components such as a team to serve at the stewards’ direction with subject matter expertise in business, data, and IT, and orientation sessions to familiarize newcomers with requirements and education sessions for all, which feature guest speakers presenting information about their business area to help overcome business silo mentalities. Getting the Data Steward roles, responsibilities, and participation in data quality services right is a big effort for Deemer. Neither business nor IT can do it alone.” At the same time “it is important to have IT partners working with you to get results. They’re voting members of the council that participate in decision- and policy-making. So, the stewards in the Data Governance Council she leads come “from the business and take ownership and responsibility,” Deemer said at the event.


Lead data steward drivers#
A main key to that is maintaining business participation in the Data Governance program, whose corporate drivers are to increase revenue, manage cost and complexity, and reduce risk while supporting corporate compliance. Heading up the Data Governance Council there, she works in conjunction with the Data Governance Office program director Michele Koch, who also holds the position of Director of Enterprise Data Management, to progress Navient’s overall Enterprise Data Management strategy. Deemer actually took on the role after retiring some years ago as controller in the company, prepared for it, she says, by the fact that differences in the Data Governance program cycles and loan service cycles can have a financial impact on the business. Navient’s origins lie with Sallie Mae, from which it was spun out last year, though it continues to service the loans in the Sallie Mae portfolio. Today, there’s another class of stewards serving equally important roles in enterprises worldwide: The Data Steward.Īt loan management, servicing, and asset recovery company Navient, the title of Chief Data Steward and Line of Business Representative belongs to Barbara Deemer, a participant in the recent CDOvision 2015 Conference at Enterprise Data World (EDW). For centuries, stewards held the top job serving the nobility and the gentry in Europe, managing their households and their landed estates.
