Data management is important in developing and maintaining executive information systems (EISs). An EIS can fail due to the lack of an adequate data infrastructure for this `data intensive' application. From the literature, discussions with developers, consulting experiences, and eight case studies, a set of key data management issues were identified. Three – data security, ownership, and standards – were further studied, using survey data collected from 85 organizations. Canonical correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship between these issues and potentially related variables. The breadth and depth of information provided were found to be correlated with the difficulty of the issues. The degree of support from key individuals was also found to be correlated with the level of difficulty.