Director, Internal Communications

Rakuten•San Mateo, CA

2d•$113,157 - $211,032•Hybrid

About The Position

Rakuten Rewards is in a period of transformation. This Director shapes how the company communicates to our employees through it, making strategy legible at every level and giving employees a clear line between their work and the company's direction. You'll work closely with Rewards leadership. While this role will primarily focus on internal communications within Rewards, collaboration with its parent company Rakuten International will be essential to ensure alignment and support for broader initiatives.

Requirements

Exceptional writer, especially in plain language that makes strategy feel relevant to the person reading it.
Business fluent. Enough understanding of the business to translate operating context into clear employee narratives without being hand-held.
Operationally disciplined. This role runs programs. You build repeatable systems for recurring programs, keep tight calendars, and follow through.
Comfortable with data. You learn from survey results and channel metrics to adjust your approach.
Strong executive presence. You can counsel senior leaders and push back when it's warranted.
Tech literate. You use available tools to work faster and smarter, and can help employees navigate AI adoption with clarity and confidence.
Able to earn trust across a complex organization without formal authority.
7-12 years in internal or employee communications; experience advising senior leaders required.
A track record of improving employee understanding or engagement.
Background in a relevant industry such as consumer tech, digital advertising or technology, e-commerce, or a fast-moving product company.
Demonstrated ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics, balancing the varying needs of cross-functional teams in areas such as Product, Marketing, Technology, and Human Resources.

Nice To Haves

Consumer tech, ad tech, and e-commerce backgrounds preferred.
Global or multinational experience a plus.

Responsibilities

Define how information moves from the executive team through leaders and managers to employees: what gets communicated broadly, what flows through managers, what needs repetition, and through which channels.
Advise Rewards leadership on communications strategy for key business moments such as product changes, organizational shifts, strategic pivots.
Give leaders at all levels the messaging and tools to communicate strategy with their teams.
Coordinate with Rakuten International communications on initiatives requiring a unified enterprise message.
Build and execute a communications strategy that assures employees know the company's direction and can connect their own work to it.
Develop "what this means for you" framing for major announcements and strategic updates.
Partner with HR to ensure programs such as onboarding, career development, and role-change communications consistently tie individual work to company priorities.
Measure employee understanding.
Build listening mechanisms (pulse surveys, channel analytics, manager feedback loops) to measure where communications are landing and identify gaps.
Bring leadership a point of view. Go beyond the raw data to spotlight what employees understand, what isn't getting through, and what to do about it.
Define KPIs around employee comprehension and whether strategy is actually getting through.
Own content strategy and execution for bi-weekly All Hands meetings and Leadership Summits. Designed around what employees need to understand.
Take full responsibility for these programs: agenda management, speaker prep, slide production, run-of-show, follow-through.
Build the systems so each runs better than the last.
Manage and apply editorial discipline to internal channels (newsletters, intranet, video, etc.). Clear priorities, valuable content, consistent cadence.