Data Product Owners and Data Stewards — Roles & Responsibilities

Data Product Owners and Data Stewards are separate governance roles, but they work closely together in Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog.

Data Product Owner

The Data Product Owner role provides permissions to create, update and manage data products within a Governance Domain. It represents accountability for the data product and the business outcome it is intended to support.

Data Steward

Data Stewards carry out much of the practical curation and governance work inside a Governance Domain, including maintaining business context and other governed artefacts.

How this works in practice

In many implementations, accountability remains with the Data Product Owner while day-to-day activities are delegated to Data Stewards. Where a delegated task requires Data Product Owner permissions, the steward must also be assigned the appropriate Data Product Owner role in that Governance Domain.

This distinction is important for Data Product Owners, Data Stewards and governance teams because accountability, delegated execution and Microsoft Purview permissions are related but not identical.