Categories + perch_content_custom

I have a repeating region on one page that uses categories, and I would like to pull items with a specific category from this region to another page.

I can't seem to get this working, not sure why:

Set: people Category: john smith

perch_content_custom('Companies', [
  'page'=>'/companies/index.php',
  'template'=>'/aside-featured.html',
  'category'=>'/people/john smith'
]);

Thanks