Yama / Creative Director

Career Steps

1st Year

Responsible for creative production for the “Rakuten Pay” service, also working on building production mechanisms.
2nd Year

Became involved in creative production for all Rakuten Payment services (“Rakuten Pay”, “Rakuten Point Card”, “Rakuten Edy”, “Rakuten Check”). Took a 4-month childcare leave around the middle of the second year.
Present

Appointed as an assistant manager. While still involved in production myself, I also handle production direction for team members, quality checks, project assignments, and resource management.

Profile

Gained experience as a creative professional at a design production company, an advertising agency, and an IT business company before joining Rakuten Payment. Currently, as a leader, I support the growth of team members while engaging in production work. As a father of one child, I'm also striving to balance childcare with my working wife. On days when I'm on childcare duty, I refrain from overtime and go home to cherish time with my family.

Current Role

I am in charge of creative direction in the department responsible for all creative production related to Rakuten Payment services. My mission is broadly divided into two parts. One is to partially manage the team as an Assistant Manager. The other is to improve the environment and build mechanisms in the creative domain. I review production flows to make them easier for members, and I work on reducing man-hours through systematization, such as site design systems, and improving usability by maintaining consistency.
The actual productions I work on mainly include campaign visuals, in-store promotional materials, social media ads, events, and videos – things that users directly see, both online and offline. Last year alone, there were hundreds of creative pieces related to campaigns! Over ten art directors, designers, and coders are simultaneously working on various projects, and I myself am involved in production as a player.

Reasons for Choosing Rakuten Payment

Rakuten Payment is my fourth company. One of the deciding factors was that the department responsible for production belonged to the marketing department. This environment aligned with my desire to combine the skills I had cultivated as a creative professional with a business and marketing perspective. By having a business perspective, I can commit to more fundamental goals, such as management and the growth of business services. I felt this was a growth opportunity that extended from my previous experiences.
Currently, I believe I am deepening my understanding of businesses, services, and marketing strategies, working closely with planners and marketers, and dedicating myself to creativity while being mindful of the business perspective. Working in an environment where business and creativity are closely linked, by proceeding with production from both quantitative and qualitative viewpoints, I have been able to achieve better results, and I feel that the “certainty of creative work outcomes,” which used to be ambiguous, is now more tangible.

Joy & Appeal of Working at Rakuten Payment

The culture unique to Rakuten is deeply rooted in its competencies based on Rakuten's values and code of conduct, “Rakuten Shugi.” This has now become my guideline for how I approach my work.
This was exemplified when I participated in the “Rakuten Pay” logo renewal project in the fall of 2023. Despite being a project with a significant impact, requiring all logos displayed in various locations to be replaced with new ones, the urgency was high and the preparation period was limited. In addition to identifying where old logos were used and creating guidelines for new logo usage, there were many tasks that needed to be handled, such as changes, confirmations, and implementations. The fact that dozens of project members each took on their roles and autonomously completed the work was because each individual approached the work with the same mindset. It was tough, but the process of working together as a team towards a single goal was very exciting, and it was a project that symbolized one of our competencies, “GET THINGS DONE.”

Future Career and Goals

During our morning meetings, data such as the number of app downloads and active users for our services are shared. This is a moment when I realize how many users my work reaches. As the service expands and the number of users grows, the importance of delivering information correctly also increases. The responsibility is great, but that social impact also connects to my sense of accomplishment.
Within the Rakuten Group, there is a team directly under Kashiwa Sato, who is in charge of the Rakuten brand across the board. We have opportunities to communicate with that team, and the ability to utilize the group's knowledge and collaborate is also a strength of this environment.
In such a challenging environment, I am striving for service-wide design systems and branding to create better services and improve user experience.

Message to Candidates

While competencies now guide my work, it's true that when I first changed jobs, it took me some time to adopt a learning attitude, as I was too focused on leveraging my existing experience. When I encountered difficulties, it was reassuring to receive support from my supervisor and colleagues. There are many talented members, and a significant benefit is gaining the knowledge Rakuten has cultivated over many years by working with them.
In 2022, my child was born, and I took 4 months of childcare leave. Honestly, I was worried if I could return to work without issues after taking leave, but that wasn't the case at all! I was able to take childcare leave smoothly, and when I returned, I received extensive support, allowing me to get back to work without stress.