If a business owner does not own it, the Data Quality Program will die an early death. Head of Internal Control, Head of Audit, Head of Quality can be important contributors to a Data Quality Program, but should avoid being a sponsor.

Execution-MiHInstitute.com is a strong advocate of business ownership of Data and its quality (and not IT). In that spirit a data quality program or a major data quality initiative, should be sponsored by the business owner. If there are data quality issues, which are traversing more than one function or could be having a regulatory or compliance or financial implications, CFO or head of control/Audit could be a right stakeholder.

While we have the sponsorship from a business owner/CFO/head of controls & Audit, a similar focus need to be for the next level. A business program manager should lead the program ably a functional team of IT and operational owners. We recommend the role of a data steward to have that ownership.