Strategic Business Operations Manager

Rakuten Kobo Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 72,090 - 123,876; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Vision insurance

Dental insurance

401(k) matching

PTO

Job summary

Rakuten seeks a Strategy & Operations professional at the enterprise level to partner with senior leaders, translating strategy into operating mechanisms, improving decision quality, and enabling scale through structure and clarity.

This role focuses on cross-functional alignment, KPI design, and executive-ready insights, using AI tools to streamline workflows. Bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of relevant experience are required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required with 5+ years in Strategy & Operations or related roles.
• Proven ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments and influence outcomes without direct authority.
• Experience shaping enterprise operating models, planning processes, or decision frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Translate strategic priorities into operating plans with milestones and review cadences.
• Structure executive discussions and OKR forums to surface tradeoffs and drive decisions.
• Maintain enterprise-wide rhythm through planning sessions, offsites, and quarterly reviews.
• Provide visibility into initiatives, risks, and outcomes, enabling proactive mitigation.
• Design KPI dashboards and reporting to inform executive decision-making.
• Produce executive-ready insights and materials for senior leadership.
• Support decision-making with market analyses and AI-enabled content workflows.

Skills

Executive collaboration

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder influence

Analytical ability

AI tools usage

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

Claude

ChatGPT

Bard

Job description

Job Summary

This role operates at the enterprise level and reports to the Chief of Staff to the CEO. The position partners closely with senior leaders across the organization to strengthen how the company plans, decides, and executes. The focus is on translating strategy into effective operating mechanisms, improving decision quality and follow-through, and creating visibility across priorities, tradeoffs, and outcomes. This is not a people leadership, program management, or functional ownership role. Instead, the role enables leaders to operate more effectively at scale through influence, structure, and clarity.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate annual and multi-year strategic priorities into clear operating plans, milestones, and review cadences that connect leadership intent to measurable outcomes.
• Structure executive and leadership discussions, including OKR and priority-setting forums, to surface tradeoffs, drive decisions, and ensure commitments are documented and followed through.
• Own and continuously improve the company’s enterprise operating rhythm, including executive planning sessions, leadership offsites, All Hands, and quarterly and annual business reviews.
• Maintain enterprise-level visibility into critical initiatives, dependencies, risks, and outcomes, surfacing issues early and aligning leaders on mitigation and course correction.
• Design and maintain KPI frameworks, dashboards, and reporting mechanisms that inform executive decision-making and reinforce accountability.
• Develop executive-ready insights, recommendations, and materials for senior leadership consumption.
• Contribute to competitive and market analyses in support of decision-making, partnering with relevant internal teams and Rakuten international as needed.
• Use Claude and similar AI tools to produce first-pass drafts of executive materials and rapid competitive scans; build simple, repeatable prompt/agent workflows to standardize outputs and reduce cycle time for exec cadence.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to operate independently in highly ambiguous environments with limited precedent.
• Demonstrated experience partnering directly with senior executives and influencing outcomes without formal authority.
• Strong executive presence with the ability to adapt communication style and persuade diverse stakeholders.
• Experience shaping enterprise operating models, planning processes, or decision frameworks.
• Highly analytical, with the ability to synthesize complex information into clear, executive-ready insights.
• Motivated by improving how an organization runs rather than owning a single function or team.
• Experience utilizing generative AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT, Bard) for content creation and workflow automation in a professional setting.

Minimum Requirement

Bachelor’s Degree required; 5+ years of experience in Strategy & Operations, Business Operations, Consulting, Corporate Strategy, or a Chief of Staff‑adjacent role.

Preferable Skills

• Regularly uses Claude for structured analysis and synthesis in executive-facing work (turning messy inputs into crisp narratives and recommendations).
• Has built reusable Claude prompt libraries/“skills” and lightweight agent workflows for recurring operating tasks (KPI commentary, risk register updates, meeting pre‑reads, decision/action logs).
• Demonstrates disciplined AI usage: no sensitive data leakage, validates key claims, and cites/links sources for anything externally derived.

Compensation and Benefits

At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the base compensation for this role to be within the range shown below.

USD $72,090.00 – $123,876.00 annually.

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.

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.