In the age of AI, data stewardship has moved from a supporting role to center stage. Data stewards, with their deep understanding of the business use and production of data, are uniquely positioned to guide organizations for transformative impact to leverage AI and data. Stewards possess the best access into the business and are more qualified than most to determine how the combination of the right data and judicious application of AI can help organizations. What most data stewards are not provided in advance is a roadmap to eliminating data debt as a necessary prerequisite to smoothly functioning data operations. Well-thought-out plans crash and burn on the rocks of reality – the legacy data environment! This program will illustrate AI’s expert-steward companion capabilities focused on specific organizational challenges. Often these are complicated by some or all of the following: 

• The specific role of data “ownership”  
• Full-time vs. part-time support/resourcing 
• Generally low data literacy everywhere 
• The confounding complexity of data debt 
• The impact of data that is not fit for purpose on AI 

Data stewards are the implementation arm of data governance. They are also the first line of defense against data debt resulting from bad data practices. Whether it’s data profiling or in-depth root cause analysis, data stewards ensure the organizationally shared data is reliably interconnected and of sufficient quality to use as AI inputs and function as the first touchpoint for ethical discussions. Whether starting or restarting your data stewardship program, success comes from: 

• Specifically being able to integrate AI support to complement architectural (re)developmental opportunities  
• Understanding the cadence/role of foundational data practices supporting organizational operations 
• Proving value with tangible ROI 
• Improving AI effectiveness/efficiencies using organization-wide perspectives 
• Comprehending how stewards need to be multifunctional and dexterous, especially at first
• Integrating the role of data debt fighting 

Peter Aiken 

Professor of Information Systems, VCU and Founder, Anything Awesome 

Peter Aiken, Ph.D. is an acknowledged Data Management authority, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, president of DAMA International, and associate director of the MIT International Society of Chief Data Officers. For more than 40 years, Peter has learned from working with hundreds of Data Management practices in more than 30 countries.  

Among his 13 books are the first on making the case for data leadership (CDOs), the first focusing on data monetization and modern strategic data thinking, and the first to objectively specify what it means to be data-literate. International recognition has resulted from these and a (pre-Covid-19) intensive worldwide events schedule. Peter also hosts the longest-running Data Management webinar series on dataversity.net. Before Google, before data was big, and before Data Science, Peter founded several organizations that have helped more than 200 businesses leverage data – specific savings have been measured at more than $1.5 billion. His latest venture is Anything Awesome.