Executive Management

Matt Meeker is the co-founder, CEO, and Executive Chairman of BARK, the company behind BarkBox. He served as CEO of the company from its foundation until September 2020 and resumed the role of CEO in January 2022.

Since launching with the monthly subscription service BarkBox in 2012, BARK has experienced rapid growth through product enhancement and revenue diversification. Matt led the company to design and create unique, dog-first products, experiences and content, carrying the success of BARK’s subscription model into new distribution channels, including e-commerce and retail.

Prior to BARK, Matt was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at DogPatch Labs, a startup incubator run by Polaris Ventures. He is an integral component of the New York startup community acting as board member or advisor to multiple early-stage companies. He currently serves as a Venture Partner at Resolute VC. In 2002, Matt co-founded Meetup, the largest network of local communities that meet offline about shared interests and passions.

Henrik Werdelin is the co-founder of BARK, where he oversees strategy, brand and M&A. He is also founding partner of Prehype, a venture development firm headquartered in New York with offices in London and Copenhagen. Across all his endeavors, Werdelin has made tactics to make large companies entrepreneurial, methods to help entrepreneurs build ventures, and products that make people (and dogs) happy.

Werdelin’s experience – centered on solving problems at scale in creative ways – ranges from being Entrepreneur in Residence at Index Ventures to helping invest, advise and start many successful ventures. Before becoming an entrepreneur and angel (the investing kind, not the flying kind), Werdelin was Vice President of Product Development and Strategy for MTV Networks International, where he spearheaded the development of many of MTV's award-winning products.

Werdelin is the author of The Acorn Method: How Companies Get Growing Again (Lioncrest). He teaches his approach to venture building at leading universities and is often quoted in the press on subjects such as corporate innovation, product design, entrepreneurship, and his dog’s favorite parks. He has been named in the Top 100 Most Creative by Fast Company and Silicon Alley Insider’s '100 People in Tech’. Henrik is Danish but lives in Brooklyn with his family and very spoiled dog, Molly.

Carly Strife is the co-founder of BARK. Carly has managed and scaled the complex business operations behind each of BARK's businesses starting with BarkBox in 2012 and now spanning several distribution channels and product lines. Today she leads strategic BARK initiatives, including BARK Eats, the company’s new personalized food blend offering.

Prior to BARK, Carly was an early employee at Uber, hired to help launch the company’s New York operation. She started her career in the Financial Advisory practice at Deloitte where she was responsible for the valuation of real estate, property, and business assets. She also co-founded Ambush Capital, investing in and advising early stage founders.

Carly has been featured on the ‘30 Under 30’ lists of both Forbes and Inc. magazines. She has a mechanical engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Carly lives in Brooklyn with her dogs Cooper, a very hungry puggle, and Reginald, an adventurous rescue terrier. On weekends she can be found riding or rebuilding motorcycles.

Nari Sitaraman has over 20 years of retail and consulting experience across technology strategy, engineering, and product management. Prior to BARK, Nari was the CTO at Crate & Barrel, where he oversaw all aspects of technology and helped evolve the digital business to be greater than 65% of the overall revenues. Before that, he was the CTO at The Shade Store, where he helped the business become a leader in their space, with a focus on omni-channel service and an unmatched customer experience. Prior to The Shade Store, he led technology teams at Williams-Sonoma and other global brands through digital transformations by fostering a tech and data driven culture focused on customer experience and innovation.

Nari received an undergraduate degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a Masters of Science from Penn State University, and an M.B.A from University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.

Nari and his wife Sri have twins - a girl and a boy - with whom they share a passion for history and nature, and enjoy spending time building models, playing board games, camping, and visiting museums and aquariums.

Founder of Financial Consulting Strategies LLC, Howard R. Yeaton presently is Chief Financial Officer for BARK, Inc. He is also on the board of Wayne Tile Co. and Member of The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Member of The Financial Executives Institute and Managing Principal at Financial Consulting Strategies LLC.

Howard previously held the position of Chief Executive Officer at MyMD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer & Chief Financial Officer at Akers Biosciences, Inc. (a subsidiary of MyMD Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), Chief Financial Officer of Energous Corp., Chief Financial Officer of Propel Media, Inc. and Vice President-Planning & Financial Services at Konica Photo USA, Inc.

He received an undergraduate degree from Florida State University and an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

Howard has a twelve-year old Cockapoo named Jolie, whose favorite activity is keeping an eye on the neighborhood to alert the house to any intruders (or honestly, let them know about anyone walking down the street). From Howard, “Jolie’s very food motivated so their monthly BarkBox is always a welcome sight! Those treats are the BEST! Keep them coming!”

Allison Koehler has over 20 years of public company legal experience in securities law compliance and disclosure, the corporate secretary function and all areas of board and committee management, M&A and strategic investments, capital markets transactions, stock administration, global subsidiary management, overseeing all other corporate matters, litigation, commercial contracts and intellectual property, developing enterprise risk management and compliance programs, and creating environmental, social and governance (ESG) and investor outreach programs. Previously, Allison was Deputy General Counsel at The RealReal, Inc., a company that went public in June 2019. Before that, Allison was at eBay Inc. (also PayPal, Inc. prior to its spin-off in 2015) as Associate General Counsel, head of Global M&A, Securities and Corporate. Before that, she was in the US Group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Frankfurt, Germany and London, England after starting her career at Gray Cary in Silicon Valley during the dotcom boom.

Allison's life is run by Gizmo, a rescue puppy who may be part Papillon and part Pomeranian, but is definitely mostly attitude. Allison and Gizmo currently live on a ranch in the foothills east of Sacramento with a pack of cousin and rescue dogs, three cats, three of their five horses, deer, wild turkeys, geese and various other wildlife. Allison and Gizmo are excited to begin their New York life and watch those small town blues melt away.

Cindy Gustafson joins us from WW International (formerly Weight Watchers) where she was the Global Chief Marketing Officer for the $1.2B subscription-based business, successfully leading the company’s efforts to build a global marketing practice, modernize the brand and offering, diversify the consumer base and accelerate performance-marketing efforts.

Cindy has more than 20 years of experience working for some of the world’s most recognizable brands across a diverse group of industries including Nike, American Express, Jaguar/Land Rover, Unilever, Booking.com, Volvo and Royal Caribbean International. Prior to joining WW in 2018, Cindy worked for Mindshare for more than a decade, most recently serving as Chief Strategy Officer for the global media agency. Throughout her tenure, she was responsible for leading the various brands' strategic roadmap and reinventing what media can do for brands in an age of digital disruption.

Cindy served as a monthly Forbes contributor and has been recognized for several professional accomplishments including American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement inductee, Ad Age “40 under 40”, Adweek Media All Star and Cynopsis Media’s Top Women in Digital. Her work has been honored by Cannes Lions Festival of Media, the OMMA Awards, the Effies, IAB and more.

Cindy lives in Larchmont, New York with her husband and two children, and will be welcoming a pup to the family this summer.

Aarti Sharma brings over 20 years of leadership experience in human resources and people strategy and has supported the development of numerous high-growth, global technology companies. Most recently, Aarti served for nine years as the Head of Human Resources at Cambium Networks where she built the human resources infrastructure globally and tripled the organization’s size.

As part of Cambium Networks’ executive team, she was also instrumental in preparing the Company for its IPO in 2019. Prior to Cambium Networks, Aarti has worked in multinational companies including Stryker Corporation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ranbaxy Laboratories and Wipro Technologies. She holds an undergraduate degree in Statistics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and an MBA in Human Resources from Symbiosis International University.

Aarti resides in Chicago with her husband, two boys and her Portuguese water dog, Kulfi who keeps the entire family delightfully active.