Data stewardship means owning accountability regarding data availability, accessibility, accuracy,   consistency, etc. To ensure data stewardship, a team of different people is formed. This team includes data managers, data engineers, business analysts, policymakers, etc. A Data Steward is responsible for data PROFICIENCY and the management of an organization's data. He is also expected to critically handle almost all the things that are related to data POLICIES, processing, data governance and look over the organization’s information assets in compliance with the different policies and the other regulatory obligations.

A Data Steward is supposed to answer the following questions:

1. What is the importance of this particular data to an organization?
2. How long the data should be stored?
3. What COULD be the improvements in the quality of the data insights?

He also looks after the data PROTECTION, data authorization and access depending upon the defined roles. Any breach would be immediately noted and brought to the notice of the management. He has to ensure that the practices regarding data retention, archival as well as disposal requirements have complied with the organizational policies and the various regulations in place. While ensuring transparency, he also has to check that the data privacy and security is not breached.  A Data Steward should ensure the quality of data and should take different MEASURES to keep it intact in consultation with the various stakeholders.

He acts as an intermediary between the business side/ management of the organization and the IT department. Depending on the company culture and the kind of Big Data project is concerned,  we can have different models or forms of Data Stewards. There can be:

1. Subject Area wise Data Stewards
2. Functional Data Stewards
3. Process wise Data Stewards
4. System Data Stewards
5. Project Data Stewards

As far as skills are concerned, a Data Steward should have the following skills:

1. Programming skills
2. Database & Warehousing Proficiency
3. Technical Writing
4. Business Acumen & Foresight etc.