Brands
SBI Card refreshes its board with Anuradha Rao, Parvathy Vairava Sundaram
MUMBAI: Shareholders of SBI Card have given the nod to two heavyweight appointments, voting through a postal ballot to confirm Anuradha Rao and Parvathy Vairava Sundaram as independent directors on the company’s board.
The approvals, dated 6 February, 2026, convert earlier board appointments into full three-year mandates. Rao will serve as independent director from 13 November, 2025 to 12 November, 2028, while Sundaram’s term runs from 9 December, 2025 to 8 December, 2028. Both appointments are on terms and remuneration to be decided by the board.
The move adds serious regulatory and banking heft to the SBI Card board at a time when lenders are under sharper scrutiny from markets and regulators alike. The company confirmed that neither appointee is related to any director and that both are clear of any Sebi or statutory bars on holding board positions.
Rao brings nearly four decades in banking and financial services. She previously served as deputy managing director in charge of strategy and digital banking at State Bank of India and later as managing director and chief executive officer of SBI Funds Management. Her boardroom experience includes directorships at the National Stock Exchange of India and several non-banking financial companies. She holds degrees from Osmania University and the University of Hyderabad and is a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.
Sundaram, by contrast, is a career central banker. After beginning in commercial banking, she spent most of her professional life at the Reserve Bank of India, working across departments and locations before retiring as executive director in November 2019. Her regulatory footprint is expansive: she was closely involved in the RBI’s asset quality review between 2015 and 2017, the shift to risk-based supervision, the overhaul of the prompt corrective action framework for banks, and policy work on marginal cost of funds-based lending rates and the proposed public credit registry. She currently sits on the RBI’s standing external advisory committee for bank licensing.
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.
