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 $127,000.00 and $160,000.00. 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
The Vice President, Product Owner will support the strategy, execution, and continuous enhancement of Treasury Services capabilities across digital channels, payments, liquidity management, reporting, onboarding, servicing, and client administration experiences. This role will partner closely with senior Product Owners, Technology, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Legal, UX/UI, and business stakeholders to deliver client-centric, scalable, and secure solutions that support the bank's Treasury Services strategy.
The Product Owner will be responsible for translating business objectives, operational requirements, client feedback, and strategic priorities into clear product requirements, user stories, and delivery plans. The role will serve as the voice of the business within agile delivery teams while helping drive roadmap execution, backlog management, release readiness, and continuous improvement initiatives.
This individual will play an important role in platform modernization efforts, digital transformation initiatives, client migrations, process simplification programs, and product enhancements while developing deep expertise across Treasury Services products, operational workflows, and digital capabilities.
Role Objectives: Delivery
Agile Delivery
• Own and manage assigned product backlogs, ensuring user stories are prioritized, refined, and ready for delivery.
• Translate business objectives and stakeholder needs into epics, features, user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, and business requirements.
• Partner with Technology teams to clarify requirements, support solution design discussions, and remove delivery blockers.
• Participate in backlog refinement, sprint planning, sprint reviews, release planning, and production readiness activities.
• Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT), defect management, production validation, and post-release monitoring.
• Track risks, dependencies, assumptions, and implementation considerations throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Ensure delivered solutions align with business objectives, control requirements, operational processes, and client expectations.
Product Ownership
• Support the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of Treasury Services capabilities across payments, liquidity management, reporting, account services, onboarding, administration, and servicing functions.
• Partner with senior Product Owners to define priorities, evaluate opportunities, and execute roadmap initiatives.
• Gather feedback from clients, sales teams, operations partners, and servicing teams to identify enhancement opportunities and improve user experiences.
• Analyze client journeys, operational workflows, business processes, and platform performance to identify opportunities for simplification and optimization.
• Collaborate with Product, Technology, Operations, and control partners to ensure solutions are scalable, supportable, compliant, and operationally efficient.
• Monitor adoption, utilization, client feedback, and business outcomes to inform future prioritization decisions.
• Support business case development, product documentation, release communications, training materials, and stakeholder engagement activities.
Qualifications and Skills
• 5+ years of experience in product management, product ownership, business analysis, treasury services, transaction banking, payments, liquidity management, cash management, digital banking, or related financial services disciplines.
• Understanding of Agile delivery practices including backlog management, user story creation, prioritization, sprint planning, UAT, and release readiness.
• Experience gathering business requirements and translating stakeholder needs into actionable product requirements.
• Knowledge of Treasury Services products including payments, liquidity management, reporting, account services, onboarding, servicing, or digital banking capabilities.
• Ability to work effectively across Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Legal, Sales, and Servicing organizations.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and decision-making skills.
• Effective communication and stakeholder management skills with the ability to present ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience supporting digital transformation, modernization, migration, or platform enhancement initiatives preferred.
• Familiarity with client portals, APIs, file-based services, workflow solutions, reporting capabilities, and related Treasury Services technology environments preferred.
Additional Requirements
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.
SMBC provides reasonable accommodations during candidacy for applicants with disabilities consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please let us know at accommodations@smbcgroup.com.