The General Chair shall have overall responsibility for the operation of DATE.

The General Chair of DATEnn+1 shall determine which functions he/she wants to have fulfilled in his/her DEC, and shall signal this timely to the Nominations Committee. Timely means that this should be signalled to the Nominations Committee of DATEnn at the time that he/she is still General Vice-Chair of DATEnn. For newly created DEC Chairs the General Chair shall provide a task descriptions to be added to Chapter 7 of the DATE Operating Procedures.

The General Chair shall prepare the budget for DATEnn+1 and offers this for approval during the June DAC meeting to the DATE Sponsor Committee (DSC).

The contract with the Exhibition and Conference Secretariat is managed by DATE Sponsor Committee and may be established for a long period. Associated to this contract are two appendixes: the present document and a second one describing the duties of the Secretariat. The General Chair shall update both documents in consultation with the Finance Chair and the DSC. For the duties document, task lists with an estimated effort and cost per task should be specified. After each DATE these tasks lists should be reviewed and evaluated using figures per task provided by the Secretariats.

The General Chair shall call the meetings of the DEC, compose the agenda of these DEC meetings, preside at all DEC meetings and participate in the DATE Sponsor Committee meetings.

The General Chair shall monitor the DATE related activities of the individual Chairs of DATE. He/she shall maintain and update the list of tasks and activities, and ensure timely that all Chairs are well aware of their tasks and activities.

The General Chair shall take corrective measures in case of insufficient performance of any of the Chairs. He/she shall judge if a Chair needs to be replaced in consultation with the other DEC Chairs and he/she makes eventually a proposal to this end to the DATE Sponsor Committee.

The General Chair shall monitor the image of DATE and shall take appropriate measures to safeguard a positive image with the target groups of DATE. The General Chair shall notify the DEC if serious problems develop, and the DATE Sponsor Committee if the financial position or the professional integrity of DATE is threatened.

The General Chair shall be responsible for all the individuals directly hired by DATE and shall supervise the execution of the Conference and Exhibition Secretariat contracts. The General Chair shall also supervise the rules and procedures for financial and other administration of DATE.

The General Chair shall be responsible for the organisation of the Opening Session of the Conference, especially for selecting and securing the Keynote Speakers.

The General Chair shall be responsible for maintaining and timely updating a document which contains the policies agreed in the DEC about issues not regulated in the DATE JS&RA or in these DATE Operating Procedures.

The General Chair can assign additional tasks to DEC members as required to conduct a smoothly operating DATE. If deemed necessary the General Chair shall appoint ad-hoc sub-Committees and monitor their performance.

The General Chair shall have signing authority on all Conference bank accounts. In cases of disputed expenses, the General Chair shall have final approval authority. No person shall hold the position of General Chair for more than one DATE.