Brands
Starbucks appoints Anand Varadarajan as chief technology officer
SEATTLE: Starbucks has named Indian-origin technology executive Anand varadarajan as its new executive vice president and chief technology officer, bringing in a long-serving Amazon leader to steer the coffee chain’s global technology operations.
Varadarajan will assume the role on January 19, join the executive leadership team and report to chief executive Brian Niccol. He succeeds Deb Hall Lefevre, who retired in September.
He joins Starbucks after nearly 19 years at Amazon, where he worked across a range of large-scale consumer and enterprise platforms. Most recently, he led technology and supply chain for Amazon’s worldwide grocery stores business. Earlier in his career, he held engineering roles at Oracle and worked with several start-ups.
Starbucks said Varadarajan’s experience in building secure, reliable systems and scaling technology to support complex operations would be critical as the company deepens its digital and data-led initiatives globally.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Varadarajan holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from Purdue University and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Washington.
The appointment comes as Starbucks looks to strengthen its technology backbone across stores, supply chains and digital channels. For a business built on routine and scale, the next phase now rests firmly in code.
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.
