Hi, I’m a seasoned Product Marketer with over 14+ years of experience, spanning product marketing and product management with a customer-focus approach, launching and driving financial products and ecosystems within the organizations for customers’ healthier financial lives.

Experience in 🇯🇵 2009 - 2013

My journey started at Rakuten, a diverse Japanese tech company, in 2009.

Product Marketing, Mobile App, Credit Card

Apr 2009 - June 2012

Tokyo, Japan

• Launched the first Android app in the Japanese credit card industry with my colleagues at Creative Design, Business, IT, and Legal/compliance teams in 2010📱
• Conducting in-depth customer research to identify customers' problems with the app and improved the functions and user experience with the teams iteratively. Iterated the process for higher customer satisfaction 📈
• Planned and executed marketing campaigns to grow the app, resulting in achieving the company’s budget in 7 consecutive months from Nov 2011 - May 2012 🎉
• Eventually, the apps including iOS were ranked No. 1 in the finance category in 2011 🎊 Now, the app exceeds 25 million downloads

Acquisition Marketing Strategist,

Credit Card

July 2012 - Dec 2013

Tokyo, Japan

• Contributed to acquiring Rakuten credit cards as an Acquisition Marketing Strategist by analyzing data such as web behavior and product conversions with SQL, Microsoft Access, and Excel, and planning/executing customer acquisition campaigns 💳 My SQL skill was established at the time🧑‍💻
• Now, Rakuten has acquired over **30 million cards** as of Dec 2023. What a great achievement by the Rakuten team!

Experience in 🇺🇸 2014 - 2023

I moved to the US in 2014 and my journey in the U.S. began.

Acquisition Marketing Strategist, Credit Card

Jan 2014 - Apr 2016

Aliso Viejo, CA

• Strategized customer acquisition plans for a co-brand credit card with one of Rakuten group companies, formerly buy.com (now Rakuten.com) and the First National Bank of Omaha ("FNBO"), and launched the credit card program in April 2014 with Creative, Product, IT, Customer Service teams and the FNBO, 17 members from 3 companies 🙌
• Developed and executed a launch campaign for the credit card program, and managed the marketing campaigns, exceeding acquisition targets in the first year 🥳
• Implemented affiliate ads for customer acquisition, contributing to acquiring credit card customers 👏
• Transformed manual KPI reporting using SQL/Access/Web Analytics tool into automated reporting processes by a BI tool, resulting in a 75% reduction of the reporting processes📈

**Product Marketing Manager,

Co-Brand Credit Card**

May 2016 - Mar 2019

San Mateo, CA

• Developed robust credit card acquisition and engagement marketing plans, driving program growth and user adoption
• Executed impactful marketing campaigns, leveraging data analysis and KPI management to optimize performance
• Unfortunately, the credit card program shut down 😭 I led the communication strategy during the program wind-down, ensuring clear and transparent messaging for internal and external stakeholders, including our platform and email communications. This experience provided valuable insights into customer communication during the program termination and the importance of proactive stakeholder management.

**Senior Product Marketing

Manager, Digital Bank**

Apr 2019 - Nov 2021

San Mateo, CA

• After changing the business strategy by the company around 2019 from operating the co-brand credit card program to becoming a bank in the U.S., Rakuten started to apply for a US banking charter to FDIC
• Since then, I had led the development of a go-to-market (GTM) strategy for the new digital bank providing consumer products such as credit cards, debit cards, checking, savings accounts, and CDs, especially focusing on customer acquisition and engagement:
  1. Target customer identification with a data-driven mindset
  2. Product positioning based on market research and quantitative research
  3. Develop a marketing plan with the marketing funnel
  4. Identify marketing KPIs by thinking backward from North Star metrics and mapping out the end-to-end customer journey
  5. Crafting marketing messaging
  6. Defining business and technical requirements

Director, Product Marketing,

Digital Bank

Apr 2019 - Nov 2021

San Mateo, CA

• In addition to the responsibility mentioned above, worked in a Product Management role 👍
• Developed and identified product vision, roadmap, and functionalities of the credit card, debit card, checking, savings, CD, and mobile app/web through market research and customer research with 10 internal key stakeholders including the executive team and 8 people from the external global digital transformation consulting company⚡️
• Collaborated with the Business, Credit, Risk, Legal/Compliance, IT, and core-banking platform vendors to identify and define 23 operational categories and 300+ business requirements of these products and mobile app/web and marketing initiatives with MVP mindset and prioritization frameworks 🏃‍♂️
• Vendor procurement for physical credit/debit card issuing; succeeded in identifying a cheaper vendor from potential vendors 💳
• Maintained partnerships with card networks to negotiate economic conditions and originate the project to develop a credit card transaction system 🤝

Separate parts of my professional experience