Brands
Knya appoints Chintan Adeshara as Head of Retail
Lifestyle and medical apparel brand eyes 100+ stores in three years as it ramps up offline push
MUMBAI: Knya is doubling down on bricks and mortar. The lifestyle and medical apparel brand has appointed Chintan Adeshara as head of retail, tasking the retail veteran with scaling the brand’s physical footprint across India as it accelerates its offline expansion.
Adeshara joins with a clear brief: help take Knya to more than 100 stores over the next three years and steer the next phase of the company’s retail growth.
The brand has already opened more than 20 stores and plans to add two new outlets every month this year, signalling an aggressive offline strategy and a push to build a strong national retail presence.
Adeshara brings more than 19 years of experience in large-scale retail operations. Over the years he has handled multi-state business management, store operations and region-led expansion, managing annual business portfolios exceeding Rs 320 crore and leading teams of more than 1,300 employees across functions and hierarchies, while keeping a firm grip on profitability and execution.
He has previously worked with fast-growing retail brands such as Zudio and Lenskart, where he played a key role in building and scaling operations from the ground up. His experience spans expansion planning, process standardisation, shrinkage control initiatives and driving sustained double-digit growth across regions.
Abhijeet Kaji, co-founder of Knya, said, “As we continue to scale our retail presence across India, it is important for us to strengthen our leadership bench. Chintan’s extensive experience in managing complex retail operations and building scalable growth models aligns well with Knya’s vision. We are confident that his leadership will add significant value to our expansion journey.”
Adeshara said the timing of the move made the opportunity particularly compelling. “I am excited to join Knya at a pivotal stage of its growth journey. My vision is closely aligned with the brand’s ambition to build India’s most structured and scalable medical apparel retail network. I look forward to driving disciplined expansion, strengthening store-level profitability, standardising retail operations, and building high-performing teams that can support Knya’s goal of scaling to 100+ stores over the next three years.”
The hire underscores Knya’s push to strengthen its leadership bench as it expands its physical presence nationwide. With stores opening at a brisk clip and the 100-store milestone firmly in sight, the brand’s retail ambitions are now moving from plan to full-throttle execution.
Brands
Godrej clarifies ‘GI’ identifier after logo similarity debate
Says GI is not a logo, will not replace Godrej signature across products.
MUMBAI: In a branding storm where shapes did the talking, Godrej is now spelling things out. Godrej Industries Group (GIG) has issued a clarification on its newly introduced ‘GI’ identifier, addressing questions around its purpose and design following a wave of online criticism. At the centre of the debate were two concerns: whether the new mark replaces the long-standing Godrej logo, and whether its geometric design mirrors other corporate identities.
The company has drawn a clear line. The Godrej signature logo, it said, remains unchanged and continues to be the sole logo across all consumer-facing products and services. The ‘GI’ mark, by contrast, is not a logo but a corporate group identifier intended for use alongside the Godrej signature or company name, and aimed at stakeholders such as investors, media and talent rather than consumers.
The need for such a distinction stems from the 2024 restructuring of the broader Godrej Group into two separate business entities. With both continuing to operate under the same Godrej name and signature, the identifier is positioned as a way to differentiate the Godrej Industries Group at a corporate level.
The rollout, however, triggered a broader conversation on design originality. Critics pointed to similarities between the GI mark’s geometric composition and logos used by companies globally, raising questions about distinctiveness.
Responding to this, GIG said its intellectual property and legal review found that such overlaps are common in minimalist, geometry-led design systems. Basic forms such as circles and rectangles appear across dozens of brand identities worldwide, the company noted.
It added that the identifier emerged from an extensive design process and was chosen for its simplicity, allowing it to sit alongside the Godrej signature without competing visually. While acknowledging that elemental shapes may appear less distinctive in isolation, the group emphasised that the mark is part of a broader identity system that includes a custom typeface, sonic branding and other proprietary elements.
Following legal and ethical assessments, the company said it found no impediment to using the identifier, reiterating that the GI mark is a corporate tool not a consumer-facing symbol.
In short, the logo isn’t changing but the conversation around it certainly has.
