Deepinder Goyal has clarified that Zomato does plan to pay the candidate selected for the Chief of Staff role, and the condition of paying Rs 20 lakh to initiative was merely a filter as the company has no plans to collect the amount.

In a post shared on X, the company’s co-founder and CEO also announced after closing the application deadline for his chief of staff opening.

This comes a day after Goyal put up the job posting on the social media platform. To make the offer not as lucrative, he announced that the role would not have any salary, at least for the first year. Not only this, the selected candidate would have had to contribute a sum of Rs 20 lakh to Zomato’s Feeding India initiative. 

Any salary discussion would only happen from the second year, he said in the original post. During the first year, Zomato would also offer Rs 50 lakh to the charity selected by the candidate.

Zomato received more than 18,000 applications and closed the process at 2 pm earlier today.

The foodtech executive had claimed that the opportunity offers 10X more learning than a two-year degree from a top management school.

Goyal, in an earlier post, had highlighted that applicants came from a diverse mix of financial backgrounds, categorising them into those who have all the money, those who have some of the money, those who claim they don’t have the money, and those who genuinely don’t have the money.

It is unclear what the Chief of Staff’s duties will be as the job description is vague. The job would entail “anything and everything to build the future of Zomato (including Blinkit, District, Hyperpure and Feeding India),” the post read.

Tata Cliq has rebranded to Tata CLiQ Fashion. With a complete visual redesign, the ecommerce platform has introduced a new brand manifesto and packaging, and refreshed both its app and web experience.

The rebranding is set to reposition the brand from a horizontal marketplace to a specialised vertical platform focused on fashion and lifestyle across categories including footwear, apparel, watches, gadgets, beauty, accessories, and home, the company said in a statement.

The new logo design encompasses a rose pink and cerulean blue colour palette.

“Our new brand identity and positioning reflect our commitment to offering consumers the best of fashion curated for their evolving needs. It is a strategic pivot to drive growth and our leadership in the fashion category. By focusing on fashion and lifestyle, our goal is to elevate fashion as a powerful form of self-expression,” said Gopal Asthana, CEO, Tata CLiQ.

In addition to the currently existing stores and over 6,000 brands, it will also introduce thematic stores that will showcase a selection of styles and essentials from a wide range of brands, the company said.

The brand is also set to roll out a new feature, ‘Fit Assessment’ which will help customers find products suited to them by analysing their past purchases and understanding their size and preferences.

The platform will also introduce virtual try-on and hyperpersonalisation features in the next few months to enhance the shopping experience, and streamline the search process the company said.

It will also launch an e-magazine, ‘e-Stylist’, which will be available on the app and will offer users ready access to trend reports, care and maintenance guides, how-to-style playbooks, and theme-based curated shopping lists to keep them updated on the latest fashion trends.

The three-day Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS) 2024, which concluded on Thursday and witnessed a footfall of over 50,000 attendees, saw the Karnataka government aiming to position the state as the top technology innovation hub for the world.

Addressing a press conference, State IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge said, “Karnataka is propelling globally and we are working on such corridors with various countries.”

BTS 2024 saw participation from 51 countries, where during the three-day summit, the state government entered into partnerships with several countries such as Germany, Finland, United States, Japan, and Sweden.

According to the minister, these partnerships will be focused on specific areas of technology collaboration with each of the countries which is expected to go a long way in enhancing cooperation.

The three-day summit also saw the Karnataka government unveiling numerous policy initiatives encompassing the technology industry, startups and space industry. The state also came out with a separate global capability centre (GCC) policy with the goal of attracting around 500 such units, to generate a revenue of around $50 billion and create additional 3.5 lakh jobs.

Similarly, the government also came out with a space tech policy where it aims to garner 50% market share by 2033 in the country. It also unveiled a tech skilling initiative called Nipuna and signed a memorandum of understanding with leading global technology companies.

The minister noted that IT services export from the state stood at Rs 4.11 lakh crore for 2023-24. In 2022-23, the IT services export from Karnataka was Rs 3.2 lakh crore.

The Startup Springboard initiative unveiled at BTS 2024 saw over 185 startups pitching their ideas to 68 investors, with 120 emerging startups receiving mentorship.

“We have created the most conducive platform for the startups in the country,” the minister said.

The goal now is to have more than 10,000 startups from outside of the state capital, Bengaluru.

The Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024 witnessed 84 sessions with participation of 521 speakers. The event featured 686 exhibitors including 403 startups, 4,775 meetings exchanged, 570 meetings were conducted in the B2B Lounge, along with 35 on-the-spot physical meetings at the venue. It also had participation from several academic institutions.

On plans for next year, the minister said, “Next year’s summit will be bigger, better and bolder.”