VP, Business Intelligence & Insights

Job Description Rakuten International is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc., a Japanese global technology leader empowering individuals, communities, businesses, and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, it has more than 4,000 employees worldwide and offers market‑leading solutions in e‑commerce, digital marketing, advertising, communications, and entertainment. Rakuten Rewards is creating a new VP, Business Intelligence & Insights role to centralize analytics and elevate it into an enterprise‑level insight and decision‑support function reporting directly to the CEO Office. As analytics platforms and AI increasingly automate reporting, competitive advantage comes from judgment, context, and clarity—not dashboards. This role ensures that Rakuten Rewards has a single source of truth for business performance and a senior leader who can translate data into actionable insights that shape strategy, prioritization, and investment decisions. What You’ll Do Lead Enterprise Data & Insights Strategy Owns Rewards’ enterprise data and insights strategy for executive and operational decision‑making (business‑facing): defining how performance is measured, interpreted, and used to drive decisions Establish a single, trusted performance narrative across Product, Marketing, Commercial, and Finance Define the enterprise analytics roadmap in close partnership with Data Platform and Engineering teams Elevate Executive Decision‑Making Serve as a trusted thought partner to the CEO and executive leadership team Translate complex data into clear insights, trade‑offs, and recommendations that inform strategic decisions Surface risks, inconsistencies, and blind spots – bringing intellectual rigor and honesty to leadership discussions Build & Lead a Centralized Insights Organization Unify analytics teams currently embedded across functions into a centralized Business Intelligence & Insights organization Set enterprise standards for metrics, definitions, and performance interpretation Build a high‑performing team known for business acumen, credibility, and influence – not reporting volume Act as a key partner with Product, Engineering, Finance, Marketing, and Sales to ensure data reporting/forecasts and insights for company, merchants, and buyers are relevant, timely, and decision‑oriented and meet their ongoing business needs Examples for areas of support: While this role is enterprise in scope, examples of the types of decisions and analyses this organization supports include but are not exhaustive Marketing & Growth Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) and incrementality analysis to inform marketing investment allocation Customer LTV, cohort, and payback analysis to guide acquisition and retention strategy Commercial & Revenue Company‑level and merchant‑level revenue performance insights and forecasting Sales quota and target‑setting analytics grounded in historical performance and pipeline dynamics Performance insights that inform prioritization across merchants, categories, and partnerships AI‑Enabled, Human‑Led Analytics Define the business requirements, use cases, and success criteria for AI‑enabled analytics in close partnership with the Data & AI Platform organization Partner with Platform teams to ensure analytics tools and capabilities are aligned to enterprise insight needs and executive decision workflows Leverage AI and automation to accelerate insight generation, while ensuring human judgment, business context, and leadership perspective guide interpretation Ensure AI‑powered analytics enhance decision quality and consistency – rather than creating parallel systems or fragmented interpretations How You’ll Work You’ll provide embedded functional support with measurable service levels while maintaining a single enterprise standard for metrics, interpretation, and performance truth You’ll own enterprise clarity: metric definitions, performance interpretation, and decision‑grade insights This role does not own functional execution (marketing spend, product delivery, sales operations) Functional leaders retain accountability for outcomes, informed by insights produced by this organization In close partnership with the Data & AI Platform and Engineering organizations – who own architecture and delivery – this role defines the enterprise analytics roadmap required to deliver decision‑grade insights at scale What Success Looks Like Leadership aligns around a single version of performance truth Executive decisions are faster, clearer, and more confident Metrics are consistent, trusted, and directly tied to strategy Analytics is viewed as a strategic advantage, not a support function What We’re Looking For 15+ years of senior leadership experience in analytics, business intelligence, or insights Proven track record of influencing C‑level decisions through data‑driven insight and judgment Experience centralizing or transforming analytics in complex, cross‑functional organizations Strong understanding of modern analytics and AI‑enabled platforms, paired with sharp business intuition Exceptional communicator with the confidence to challenge assumptions and elevate executive thinking Five Principles for 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 Equal Employment Opportunity Statement Rakuten provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type. Rakuten considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, provincial or local laws. Compensation & Benefits 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, 401(k) matching, PTO, Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements. USD $178,767.00 – $333,720.00 annually #J-18808-Ljbffr SupportFinity™