Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Specialist, Cloud Service Economics - Cloud Strategy Office, Cloud Management Department (CMD)

Job description

Job Description: Business Overview The Technology Platforms Division (TPD) drives the growth of Rakuten's ecosystem by delivering innovative, high-quality technology platforms characterized by integrated control and strategic partnerships. Within TPD, the Cloud Platform Supervisory Department (CPSD) develops and manages Rakuten's state-of-the-art cloud platform, empowering global scalability and accelerating innovation across its diverse business units. Department Overview The Cloud Management Department (CMD) leads Rakuten’s unified cloud infrastructure strategy by providing governance and essential tools to ensure seamless operation and high satisfaction among service providers and users. As the central point for strategy, planning, and process governance, we manage the cloud product portfolio, budgeting, quality, and security. Furthermore, we empower cross-departmental success through robust cloud foundation and management solutions. The Cloud Strategy Office develops financial intelligence, governance, and decision-support products for internal-cloud service providers and private- and public-cloud buyers. We help stakeholders improve cost, pricing, investment, quality, and multi-cloud strategy through reliable data products and strong financial partnership. Position: Why We Hire Rakuten’s internal-cloud service providers manage complex combinations of infrastructure, hardware, depreciation, vendor contracts, shared-cost allocation, and internal pricing. As the platform and its financial tools expand, we need a senior finance partner who can own the financial model, raise forecast quality, challenge service-owner assumptions, and improve the quality and price of services. The role will also own financial evaluation and realization tracking for AI investments and productivity initiatives under guidelines set by the hiring manager. Position Details ・ Act as the senior finance partner to the people responsible for providing Rakuten’s internal-cloud services ・ Own the financial model, consolidation, quality controls, and decision support for budgets and forecasts while service owners remain accountable for their operational assumptions ・ Lead budget-versus-actual and forecast analysis, identify underlying drivers, and ensure that actions are followed through ・ Develop and challenge service unit economics, cost structures, allocation methods, chargeback or showback, and internal service pricing ・ Lead cost-savings and efficiency initiatives ・ Analyse fixed assets, capitalization, depreciation, hardware investment and lifecycle, and vendor cost structures ・ Build alternatives and recommendations that improve efficiency and customer value without weakening service quality or reliability ・ Challenge technical and operational stakeholders constructively using financial evidence, scenarios, and clearly stated tradeoffs ・ Own financial evaluation, benefit tracking, follow-up, and reporting for AI investments and productivity initiatives using guidelines established by the hiring manager. ・ Help improve the financial dashboards, simulations, automated reports, and management information used by service owners and leadership ・ Use English for cross-functional communication, documentation, review meetings, and decision support Work Environment You will join a newly formed, small cross-functional team in the Cloud Strategy Office. You will work with internal-cloud service providers, the Cloud Center of Excellence, data specialists, finance teams, senior leaders, and internal cloud buyers. Engineering specialists in the team will support reliable data and tooling so that you can focus on financial insight, challenge, and decisions. Mandatory Qualifications: ・ 6 or more years of relevant FP&A, management-accounting, or finance-business-partnering experience ・ Practical familiarity with technology infrastructure or cloud cost structures ・ Hands-on experience with fixed assets, capitalization, and depreciation ・ Experience with cost allocation, chargeback or showback, or internal service pricing ・ Strong budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, financial modelling, and management-reporting capability ・ Experience analysing cost structures that include hardware, capacity, usage, or vendor spend ・ Demonstrated ability to challenge operational or technical stakeholders using financial evidence and credible alternatives ・ Ability to explain complex finance concepts, such as OpEx and CapEx, clearly to non-finance stakeholders ・ Business Level English. TOEIC score 800 above or possess equivalent abilities Desired Qualifications: ・ Experience with cloud services, internal technology products, data centres, telecommunications, SaaS, or another infrastructure-intensive business ・ Experience evaluating technology investments, productivity initiatives, or AI-related benefits and tracking realized value ・ Experience improving finance processes through dashboards, automation, or data products ・ Advanced Excel, SQL, business-intelligence, or comparable financial-data skills ・ Relevant accounting, management-accounting, FP&A, or FinOps certification ・ Business-level Japanese. #business #finance #accounting #technologyplatformdiv Languages: English (Overall - 3 - Advanced)