Brands
PeopleStrong names Aashay Manake as chief people officer
NEW DELHI: PeopleStrong has pressed refresh on its leadership bench, appointing Aashay Manake as chief people officer to steer its people and culture agenda through its next growth chapter.
Manake joins the Asia-focused human capital management SaaS player from Jubilant FoodWorks, where he served as vice president HR, overseeing people strategy across large, multi-brand and widely distributed teams. In his new role, he will focus on leadership development, workforce effectiveness and organisational readiness as PeopleStrong scales across markets.
With over 16 years of experience, Manake has built his career in fast-moving and complex environments, spanning FMCG, industrial conglomerates, hospitality, consumer tech, and food services. His résumé includes senior people leadership stints at ITC, GE and OYO, giving him a front-row view of transformation at scale.
An alumnus of SCMHRD, Manake has led enterprise-wide HR charters covering performance and rewards, talent and leadership development, employee relations and organisational design, often during periods of rapid change.
Welcoming him on board, PeopleStrong CEO Sandeep Chaudhary, said the appointment reflects the company’s belief that caring for people is central to business success. He noted that as organisations grapple with increasingly complex workforce realities, leaders who combine HR expertise with strong process thinking and human insight are essential.
Manake echoed the sentiment, saying PeopleStrong has long set benchmarks in progressive people practices. He added that he looks forward to strengthening capabilities, building scalable people systems and fostering a culture that brings energy, purpose and joy to work.
The appointment underlines PeopleStrong’s people-first philosophy as it sharpens its long-term growth ambitions. The company currently powers over 500 enterprises, serves more than 2 million users and processes upwards of 1.75 million paycheques every month. Its HR mobile app boasts a 4.8 rating across iOS and Android, and PeopleStrong has been recognised as a Customers’ Choice in Gartner’s Cloud HCM Suites category for enterprises with over 1,000 employees from 2022 to 2025.
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.
