Credit Card Services Director

Job Description:

Rakuten International oversees 7 businesses with over 4,000 employees globally. The brand is recognized for its leadership and innovation in e-commerce, digital content, advertising, entertainment and communications, bringing the joy of discovery and access to more than 1 billion members across the world. Our teams deliver on the company’s mission to delight merchants and customers through innovation, optimism, and teamwork.

Rakuten Rewards is a leading e-commerce company that enhances the way people shop by offering Cash Back, deals and rewards from more than 3,500 merchants. Founded in 1999, Rakuten has grown to become the go-to shopping destination for consumers, having paid out nearly $2 billion in Cash Back to its 15 million members. The company also operates ShopStyle, a leading fashion discovery destination, and Cartera Commerce, a top rewards platform for airlines and banks. For more information, visit www.rakuten.com.

Job Summary:

Rakuten is seeking an experienced, strategic, and highly collaborative credit card leader with top-notch experience to build and scale the credit card co-branded card business at Rakuten in partnership with Rakuten’s co-brand issuing partner. This role is central to the success of Rakuten’s Credit Card program and the overall mission to deliver more value to Rakuten’s members.

The credit card services director will be responsible for managing the P&L and as well as managing our co-brand and network partners to set the vision, identify opportunities and key inputs, set goals, define the customer experiences and deliver a top-of-wallet value proposition with best-in-class features/capabilities.  As the credit card services leader at Rakuten, we will look to the director to set big, ambitious goals, be gritty, and hold yourself, your co-brand issuing partner, and your cross-functional teams accountable to deliver results on behalf of our Rakuten Rewards members.

This role is inherently cross-functional… the credit card services director will work closely with Rakuten’s co-brand issuing partner as well as with Rakuten’s engineering and consumer product team, analytics, marketing, operations, finance, credit, risk, legal, compliance and Rakuten’s executive team to set business objectives, define product strategy, prioritize features and execute on them.

The credit card services director will play the critical role of driving the co-brand card business while bridging the technical and business worlds to drive profitable business growth while managing within Rakuten’s risk constraints.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own and define the vision, strategy, and credit card roadmap

• Manage P&L to ensure profitable growth of the portfolio that is aligned to communicated business targets

• Create and evangelize a credit card vision and own a multi-year credit card roadmap, including prioritizing and driving backlogs for launch with the consumer product and engineering teams and your co-brand issuing partner

• Communicate the vision, strategy, execution plan and customer impact/learnings to all stakeholders including the highest levels of leadership at Rakuten

• Collaborate closely with the full cross-functional team (e.g., co-brand issuing partner and Rakuten’s marketing, consumer product, design, IT/engineering, compliance, credit, risk, finance, and operations) to help execute on the strategic vision

Qualifications:
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Full stack "operator" ability to both create and execute the credit card business and strategy; with clear objectives, but limited, ambiguous, or varied direction

• Ability to operate cross-functionally, leading and influencing colleagues, and ultimately leading to timely tactical decision making to advance Rakuten’s objectives

• Flexible and collaborative approach to problem solving and ideation in a highly ambiguous environment

• Superior communication skills, written and verbal. Experience presenting to C-level leadership

• Deep curiosity for how complex (financial) systems work, and an ability to internalize and analyze this information quickly

• A blend of demonstrated business, credit card product management, financial management, and execution skills

• Experience in a startup environment; entrepreneurial mindset

• Data-driven approach and excellent analytical skills since data will drive the credit card business

• Passion for Rakuten customers!  The credit card services director will always do right by Rakuten’s customers

• Bachelor's degree or higher with a technical discipline

• 7-10 years of credit card product management experience

• Experience owning and managing a credit card P&L

Minimum Requirements:

• 10+ years in product management or general management

• M.B.A.

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Five Principles for Success
Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.

Always improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen
Passionately Professional - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best
Hypothesize - Practice - Validate – Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory
Maximize Customer Satisfaction - The greatest satisfaction for our teams is seeing their customers smile
Speed!! Speed!! Speed!! - Always be conscious of time - take charge, set clear goals, and engage your team

At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the base compensation for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for discretionary bonus, health, vision, dental insurance, 401k matching, PTO, Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements.