Introduction
A data office is usually set up with the view of bridging the knowledge gap between various functions of an organisation, especially when it comes to data (naturally!). However, to become that bridge, the CDO needs the right skill sets within the team. A strong data office will have colleagues performing one or more of the roles described in this post.
The Steward
The Data Steward role is the main governance role in a data office. This role deals with all of the cataloging and maintenance of data assets across the firm. They ensure that everything a business expects from their data is available, preferably in one place.
Key Skills
- Stakeholder Management – This is typically an Internal facing role within the CDO which works with other CDO roles to ensure everything is properly documented and compliant
- Functional – Cataloging data and managing ownership of data assets. The role is also responsible for regular attestations to make sure the data assets are always current. Some roles may also require authoring business lineages within appropriate toolsets.
- Tooling – Exposure to catalogue and metadata tools e.g. Ab Initio Metadata Hub, Collibra or even something more open source like Amundsen. Experience of other office tools like Excel, Word and Powerpoint is essential. (You will likely be using VLOOKUP at some point!)
- Personal Traits – To succeed in this role, the main trait required is to be detail oriented. A significant level of documentation is to be expected, so strong communication skills are essential to the role.
The Business Partner
The Business Partner role deals with engaging all the business lines within the firm. This is a business development role which helps businesses navigate through their data needs while also ensuring appropriate governance. A Business or Data Partner is the bridge between the data office and the rest of the firm.
Key Skills
- Stakeholder Management – This is typically an External facing role which corresponds with all business lines. The role also ensures that a healthy bi-directional line of communication exists between the data office and the business lines at all times.
- Functional – Strong fundamentals of the business is essential. Typically someone who has had significant exposure within the firm and has handled actual data on a day-to-day basis.
- Tooling – While the ability to access and evaluate actual data is a nice to have, the role needs exposure on a majority of the tools that the business lines or customers use. This ensures they have a full view of a data lifecycle from a stakeholder point of view.
- Personal Traits – This is an Influencer role which will sometimes deal with very senior people in the firm. A cool head is necessary along with a mindset to build and develop relationships – So communication skills are paramount.
The Data Engineer
A Data engineer role is a nice-to-have in every data office but i would highly recommend having one on board. Sometimes, the business partner would also perform this role but it is beneficial to have someone capable to query and evaluate data. This comes in handy especially when evaluating data quality.
Key Skills
- Stakeholder Management – This is typically an Internal facing role which works very closely with the Business Partner.
- Functional – Exposure to Business lines especially as part of a technology function is ideal.
- Tooling – A strong technical mindset is essential to the role. Ideally, exposure to numerous data/ETL tools and strong SQL skills across multiple databases would be good to have. Programming or scripting skills are also essential.
- Personal Traits – This is an analytical role. The best trait to have is a thirst for technology as engineers will be expected to evaluate data which can exist on any platform.
The Data Architect
An Architecture role has usually been within the remit of technology. However, a Data Architect is responsible mainly for the design and model of data according to business needs. Having this role in the data office makes it significantly easier to ensure appropriate data usage across the bank. It also brings governance into projects as architects almost always need to review important technology changes.
Key Skills
- Stakeholder Management – This is an external facing role dealing mainly with technology and business teams.
- Functional – As with the data engineer, exposure to Business lines especially as part of a technology function is ideal. Knowledge of data modelling is good to have but it is more important to understand the usage of data. The architect is supposed to know about the nitty-gritty of why data is stored the way it is – especially the business rules around it.
- Tooling – Exposure to data modelling tools and strong SQL skills across multiple databases is essential.
- Personal Traits – This is an analytical and an influencing role. Strong communication skills are essential along with a good technical mindset.
Closing Comments
One more role which i will not discuss in significant detail pertains to the legal and compliance functions of the data office. A CDO should have this role to help facing off with external stakeholders to the firm and internal functions like Legal, Compliance and Audit. The roles above are not exhaustive and data offices can definitely have more roles ensuring a smooth run. The intricacies of those roles also depend on the organisational structure but the above are core roles that a data office should have to perform efficiently.