Innovation and Transformation – Associate

Industry: Change Management

Company: Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc.

SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards, and consumer finance. The Group has more than 130 offices and 80,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, which is one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG’s shares trade on the Tokyo, Nagoya, and New York (NYSE: SMFG) stock exchanges.

In the Americas, SMBC Group has a presence in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Backed by the capital strength of SMBC Group and the value of its relationships in Asia, the Group offers a range of commercial and investment banking services to its corporate, institutional, and municipal clients. It connects a diverse client base to local markets and the organization’s extensive global network. The Group’s operating companies in the Americas include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc., SMBC Capital Markets, Inc., SMBC MANUBANK, JRI America, Inc., SMBC Leasing and Finance, Inc., Banco Sumitomo Mitsui Brasileiro S.A., and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd.

The anticipated salary range for this role is between $92,000.00 and $140,000.00. The specific salary offered to an applicant will be based on their individual qualifications, experiences, and an analysis of the current compensation paid in their geography and the market for similar roles at the time of hire. The role may also be eligible for an annual discretionary incentive award. In addition to cash compensation, SMBC offers a competitive portfolio of benefits to its employees.

Role Description

Grounded in an understanding of the Transaction Banking business, analyze the current state and proactively design a target future state, incorporating areas for efficiency enhancement, risk reduction, and business growth. Manage end-to-end delivery for business transformation and innovation projects. Engage stakeholders across multiple departments to ensure alignment and successful delivery of objectives. Monitor progress throughout the life of the transformation effort and assess outcomes to ensure completeness and sustainability.

Utilize technology to help the business visualize its data to better understand its status as well as identify insights and trends. Build out a business dashboard and handle routine maintenance as well as continuous enhancements by coordinating between stakeholders in the business and tech. Assist to draft time-sensitive reporting for senior management and Head Office, as necessary in Japanese.

As a member of the Product Management team, develop an end-to-end knowledge of the product, liaise with internal stakeholders to resolve issues and queries, and stay up to date on relevant industry and tech developments to continuously enhance the product.

The successful candidate will combine strong business analysis skills, data visualization knowledge, project management experience and a background in a transformation or innovation function. Transaction banking or payments knowledge is a plus. Japanese language skills are a plus.

Role Objectives: Delivery

Support delivery of transformation program or portfolio programs, with a focus on data visualization. Refine business requirements, create prototypes with the development team, participating in testing and delivering new features and functions. Track progress and generate management reports. Highlight potential risks to a smooth delivery and work to resolve issues. Liaise with subject matter experts and data owners throughout the organization. As necessary, coordinate and facilitate meetings to drive execution of program deliverables. Monitor post-delivery and usage figures to gauge uptake and potential issues.

Role Objectives: Interpersonal

Seek out opportunities to enhance the business through continuous dialogue with team members and other stakeholders. Act as liaison to promote coordination and awareness of over-arching objectives. Prepare assessments of transformation program projects, create and socialize business requirements, brief management on future state plans and communicate with others as necessary to further the transformation agenda. Collect and summarize process and data owner feedback to inform refinements to target outcomes as necessary. Establish relationships with internal subject matter experts to facilitate involvement and contributions to program delivery.

Role Objectives: Expertise

Experience in the financial services industry, with a focus on transaction banking or payments. Demonstrate a strong command of data analysis and visualization techniques, technology, and best practices. Business analysis skills and project management experience. Ability to define business requirements and translate them into appropriate functional and non-functional elements. Track and report program delivery on a continuous basis and update management and other stakeholders on program status. Use communication skills to engage effectively with the business, process owners and tech.

Qualifications and Skills

Years of experience: 3-5

Relevant experience in Financial Services industry

Japanese language skills and experience with reporting or briefing senior management required.

Knowledge of transaction banking, cash management, or payments

Data analysis and visualization skills necessary

Business analysis skills – ability to define problem or process improvement opportunity, identify and analyze options, and propose effective solutions

Experience supporting transformation and innovation projects

Aptitude for trouble-shooting issues and proven track record of acting entrepreneurially in organizations

Affinity for a high-performance work environment; ability to pivot to critical path tasks as necessary

Ability to multitask while maintaining strong attention to detail

Ability to analyze data sets and create insightful visualizations to convey complicated information succinctly

Proficiency in MS Office suite, SharePoint, and Tableau or Power BI

Additional Requirements

D&I Commitment

Responsible for fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion, holding leaders accountable for creating an inclusive environment through awareness and practice of equity in recruiting, developing, and promoting diverse talent.

SMBC’s employees participate in a Hybrid workforce model that provides employees with an opportunity to work from home, as well as, from an SMBC office. SMBC requires that employees live within a reasonable commuting distance of their office location. Prospective candidates will learn more about their specific hybrid work schedule during their interview process. Hybrid work may not be permitted for certain roles, including, for example, certain FINRA-registered roles for which in-office attendance for the entire workweek is required.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. SMBC provides reasonable accommodations for employees and applicants with disabilities consistent with applicable law. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please let us know at accommodations@smbcgroup.com.