Leonel Garciga, chief information officer of the U.S. Army and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, has issued a memorandum detailing data stewardship roles and responsibilities within the service branch.
The Army’s Office of the CIO announced the release of the memo in a LinkedIn post published Thursday.
The document serves as guidance for the Army to improve the management of Department of Defense data by controlling and safeguarding data assets at rest and in transit; establish a culture of data-driven decision-making while aligning with the department’s strategy for data, artificial intelligence and analytics; and advance the continuous improvement of the service’s data stewardship practices and technologies in support of the CIO’s strategic objectives.
The memo directs mission area leads to nominate mission area data officers, or MADOs, and submit the names to the Army Chief Data and Analytics Officer for approval and appointment within 30 days.
MADOs will identify and issue appointment memoranda for data stewards within their respective mission areas and assess and update data steward appointments as needed at least on an annual basis.
Data stewards will assess their functional mission and data products to determine what  functional data managers, or FDMs, are needed to ensure efficient data management in their domain, appoint FDMs and maintain proper registration of FDMs, data sources and products in the Army Data Catalog.
FDMs will oversee the implementation of data management and analytics lifecycle processes adopted by their data stewards.
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