Executive Management

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

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.

Matt is a long-distance runner and lives in Brooklyn, New York with his Great Dane, Hugo.

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.

Manish Joneja is CEO at BARK with two decades of experience scaling businesses through consumer-centric product and technology innovation, omnichannel commerce, global expansion and operational transformation.

Prior to BARK, he served as a leader in Amazon’s worldwide operations division focused on global exports and expansion, leading global teams in product management, supply chain and data science. Before joining Amazon, he spent five years at eBay where he led a mix of business, product and operations portfolios. Prior to eBay, Joneja spent more than a decade counseling retail, ecommerce and tech brands like Nordstrom, Polo Ralph Lauren, Nike, Gap, Sony and Microsoft on growth, operations, customer experience and more.

Joneja lives with his wife, Matrayi, twin five-year-old sons, Neel and Ishaan, and Begum, a former Delhi street dog.

John Toth served as BARK's CFO from early 2016 to November 2021, supporting the company through its rapid but disciplined growth.

Prior to joining BARK, John served as the CFO of HotChalk, Inc. where he successfully facilitated the sale of a majority stake in the company. He also served as the CFO of ARC Document Solutions (NYSE: ARC), Bell-Carter Foods, and Fresh Express. Before being a CFO, John worked in investment banking, first with Goldman Sachs and later with JP Morgan. John received his bachelors and masters degrees in economics, both from Stanford University.

John is a committed Orioles fan living in the San Francisco Bay area with wife and children who have been known to adopt and foster animals of all types without his input or consent.