What are the responsibilities of The Executive Sponsor?

The executive sponsor is responsible for

1. Participate in optimum project portfolio selection either directly or linking to the project portfolio selection group
2. Own the project's Business Case that is key to developing the project and driving the project charter
3. Align project outcomes with corporate strategy and the practical needs of the business operations, which is the domain of project management
4. Update the alignment if/when business conditions change, which also impacts project management
5. Ensure metrics are established and used by Operations
6. Link to operations to ensure product benefits are harvested and data fed back to the decision-makers to close the portfolio feedback loop

The responsibilities for which the sponsor is accountable to the board are:

• Provides leadership on culture and values
• Owns the business case
• Keeps project aligned with organisation's strategy and portfolio direction
• Governs project risk
• Works with other sponsors
• Focuses on realisation of benefits
• Recommends opportunities to optimise cost/benefits
• Ensures continuity of sponsorship
• Provides assurance
• Provides feedback and lessons learnt

The governance activities that take place between the sponsor and the project manager are:

• Provides timely decisions
• Clarifies decision making framework
• Clarifies business priorities and strategy
• Communicates business issues
• Provides resources
• Engenders trust
• Manages relationships
• Supports the project managers role
• Promotes ethical working

In addition to these activities the following activities take place between the sponsor and other stakeholders:

• Engages stakeholders
• Governs stakeholder communications
• Directs client relationships
• Directs governance of users
• Directs governance of suppliers
• Arbitrates between stakeholders

The Executive Sponsor is a manager with demonstrable interest in the outcome of the project who is ultimately responsible for securing spending authority and resources for the project. 

The Executive Sponsor is a manager with demonstrable interest in the outcome of the project who is ultimately responsible for securing spending authority and resources for the project. Ideally, the Executive Sponsor should be the highest-ranking manager possible, in proportion to the project size and scope. The Executive Sponsor acts as a vocal and visible champion, legitimizes the project’s goals and objectives, keeps abreast of major project activities, and is the ultimate decision-maker for the project. The Executive Sponsor provides support for the Project Sponsor and/or Project Director and Project Manager and has final approval of all scope changes, and signs off on approvals to proceed to each succeeding project phase. The Executive Sponsor may elect to delegate some of the above responsibilities to the Project Sponsor and/or Project Director.

Typically, the executive sponsor is responsible for:

• Championing the project.
• Obtaining budget approval for the project.
• Accepting responsibility for problems escalated by the project manager.
• Signing off documents such as the Business Case and project initiation document.
• A good problem solve.
• A business savvy with a reputation to exert pressure within an organization to overcome resistance to the project.

The project sponsor will be a senior executive in a corporation (often at or just below board level) who is responsible of the success of the project.

The sponsor has a number of interfaces and responsibilities for the project.

• Provides leadership on culture and values
• Owns the business case
• Keeps project aligned with organisation's strategy and portfolio direction
• Governs project risk
• Works with other sponsors
• Focuses on realisation of benefits
• Recommends opportunities to optimise cost/benefits
• Ensures continuity of sponsorship

Concur with most of the answers, already given.

scope of work

The responsibilities for which the sponsor is accountable to the board are:

• Provides leadership on culture and values
• Owns the business case
• Keeps project aligned with organisation's strategy and portfolio direction
• Governs project risk
• Works with other sponsors
• Focuses on realisation of benefits
• Recommends opportunities to optimise cost/benefits
• Ensures continuity of sponsorship
• Provides assurance
• Provides feedback and lessons learnt

Successful sponsorship requires a deep understanding of organizational culture and awareness of how the project will help the organization achieve its goals. Part of the sponsor's job is to promote the project within the organization, making sure that everyone understands the benefits the project will provide.

In some organizational cultures, the executive sponsor is the person who is responsible for financially authorizing a project and creating the project charter. The sponsor should work closely with the project manager (PM), but is probably not the project manager's boss. Typically, the PM is responsible for day-to-day execution and the sponsor only steps in to make decisions when change requests might affect the project's scope.

There are many good answers, I like Mr. Basit Ali's answer best