Our Team & Story

MEET THE CREW

Andrey Grigoryev

Founder & CEO

Andrey became a catrepreneur in 2011 when he launched the now Shark-Tank-famous cat toy brand Cat Amazing. Brook is his second act. The goal is do for pet hydration what Cat Amazing did for indoor cats. How did Andrey wind up here? Long before Shark Tank (here’s the full episode, by the way)...

Long before Shark Tank, while Cat Amazing was just a side project, Andrey had a meandering career through the world of tech – a small marketing agency, a Fortune 500, a scrappy software startup – all of it added up to the equivalent of a hands-on “MBA” (without the tuition bill) – and fueled his fire for entrepreneurship.

The love for tinkering and clever engineering came from his father. Venturing into the pet space was never a conscious decision, but seems natural in hindsight – animals formed a core part of his life ever since he moved to the US from Russia in 1993, when he was just 8 years old. Pets made the transition easier. Lizzy the lizard came first, which led to an aquarium, a couple of tortoises, and – of course – cats.

Recently, Andrey teamed up with the ACC NYC (the city’s largest animal shelter, where two of his own cats came from) to create specialized toys that go into each of the kennels to provide enrichment for cats awaiting their forever homes!

Brook is Andrey’s first foray into glass – a material notoriously difficult to work with. In April 2026, he finally took his first-ever glassblowing class – partly out of curiosity, partly to try to understand what he'd been asking of the factory for over two years. He walked away with a psychedelic pumpkin – and a whole new respect for the craft. It was lots of fun – but don’t worry, he won’t be personally taking over production anytime soon!

Andrey now lives with his wife, two kids, and two cats – Lion and Vincent – in New Jersey, USA

Alyssa Barrientos

Chief Ambassador

Alyssa is the reason Brook sounds like Brook. She makes the content, runs the channels, and generally makes sure that every post, email, and caption speaks from someone who's deep in cat life. Because she is. Four cats deep, to be exact.

Her first, Gus, arrived in November 2018. The others accumulated, as cats tend to. Two were strays – won over one treat at a time, on their terms. The others required significantly less negotiation

After her Marketing degree, she walked out of her corporate job and into Cat Amazing, where "loves cats" and "loves making content" somehow became a real job description. She still remembers Andrey mentioning a side project early on. "A water fountain. Made of glass. Kind of a long shot..."

She's been along for the ride from the start.

Off the clock, Alyssa volunteers at a local cat cafe in Dallas-Fort Worth, helping shelter cats get comfortable around people so they're ready for their forever homes – something she was inspired to do after meeting her teammate Ana.

The cat cafe is also the stage for her now-famous experiment: three water stations, a choice between bowl and fountain, and 24-hour cameras on each one, set up to finally answer the question every cat owner secretly wonders. If you haven't seen the results, they're worth a watch. (Spoiler: the cats had opinions.)

Anastasiia Matviienko

Head of Design

Ana is the spirit behind how Brook shows up in the world – from every paper in your hands to every pixel on your screen. She also happens to be doing all of this from the front line of the war in Ukraine.

"Front line" isn't a metaphor for Ana – she lives close enough where air-raid alerts mean actual missile and drone strikes, and war devastation is a regular part of life and the landscape. Her approach to it is roughly the same as her approach to design: something needs to be done, so she figures out how to do it.

When she's not working, Ana volunteers with organizations like BUR (Building Ukraine Together) and Dobrobat. After strikes, she's out with the recovery crews, boarding up damaged buildings with OSB panels to keep the cold and rain out until real repairs can happen. To that end she even learned to operate heavy machinery, including excavators and loaders – which, she says, was “not part of the original plan.”

Design-wise, Ana has been doing this for as long as she can remember – structured and technical, loose and experimental, everything in between. At some point it stopped being a “career choice” and just became the way she operates in the world. The same instinct follows her home, where she restores things, builds things, and makes things from scratch.

Her cat, Boris, also has a backstory worthy of a short film. He showed up at a frontline stabilization point, found his way into Ana's life, took some time to recover, and now lives in her house like he signed the lease. She also recently rescued an injured bird, nursed it back to health, and set it free when it was ready to fly. Of course she did.

Kostiantyn Abramov

Lead Mechanical Engineer

Kostya is the wizard astride the bridge between the ethereal and the material. Through his alchemy, the "what if we…" and the napkin scribble become a manufacturable reality. He's also, by a wide margin, the most serious animal person on the team.

He grew up in central Ukraine in what his family calls a "cat dynasty." It started in 2002 with a ginger they took in off the street, and it never really stopped. More than 50 animals have come through their home – strays rescued, rehabbed, rehomed, or kept for good. It’s more than a number to him – it’s real, hands-on experience and a deep understanding of animal behavior, needs, and personalities. Today he has four cats of his own. His parents have nine more. The dynasty endures.

His first dog, Mickey, arrived in 1995 when Kostya was nine. He credits that moment – a gift from his mom – with shaping how he relates to animals to this day.

Kostya is a mechanical engineer who has spent years making very complicated things work. He's designed industrial pumps. He's designed bodies for RC cars. (Yes, the radio-controlled kind.) His specialty is reverse engineering – figuring out how things work, and how they can be made to work better. A career at Area 51 was calling, but he started tinkering with Andrey on cat toys in 2022 and decided aliens can wait – pets come first.

Kostya's work outside of work defines him. He feeds the stray animals who live near his home. In winter, he builds insulated shelters for the ones sleeping outside – and he kept building them while recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon, hobbling around doing as much as his leg would allow. When he said he helps stray animals “no matter the circumstances” we thought he was referring to theirs – turns out he meant his own as well.

Kostya lives in Ukraine with four cats in his home – and over a dozen in his orbit.

Ari Faynerman

Lead Electrical Engineer

Ari and Andrey have been close friends since their first day of high school, which means the universe took nearly three decades to arrange this particular collaboration. Worth the wait. Ari joins Brook to work on what's next – the future of pet hydration, engineered from the ground up.

For over a decade, Ari designed fluid control and chemical analysis systems for the companies that build the world's most advanced microchips – including TSMC, Samsung and Intel. The kind of instruments that live inside billion-dollar semiconductor fabs, where a single bad reading can tank an entire production line.

Now he's bringing that same expertise to… your cat's drinking water. It's a bit of a leap. He's thrilled.

Ari’s engineering streak goes back to the early internet – back when Macromedia Flash was king and building a website meant actually building something. The world has changed, the creative instinct remains. When he's not building tech, he's on a snowboard – his preferred way to unplug and reboot.

Emi, Aria and Gadget currently rule Ari's household in California – the latest three in a long line of felines who've called him theirs. Turns out designing for animals hits differently when you've spent decades caring for them, feeding them, and cleaning after them. He knows what a good pet product feels like because he's been the customer for one, a thousand times over

Nuran Alkan

Head of Operations

This is the true story of how Andrey and Nuran met.
We hope you’re sitting down for this one. Picture this –

Andrey walks into a small local print shop, which also doubles as a shipping hub.

He’s got something to mail, and he’s using a leftover Brook box to do it. 📦🚶‍♂️

He walks up to the counter, barely taking his eyes off his phone.

“Hey – can you print me a shipping label?”

“Sure” says the woman behind the counter.

She glances at the box as she’s typing – “is that a return? You didn’t like it?”

The question barely registers – “what? – oh, no – there’s something else in there. I’m just reusing the box.”

Then – "wait… do you know what this is?”

“Yes. I just ordered one. For my cats.”

This was less than 3 months after the launch of Brook. At this point, there are fewer than a thousand Brook fountains in existence

“Really...” he says, playing it cool – “huh. How do you like it?”

She lights up – “I love it!”

She goes on about the glass. The sound of the water. How her cats are drinking more than they ever. A long, heartfelt accolade.

Andrey swallows – “uh-huh. And… how did you find out about it?”

“Instagram – I saw it and had to have it. First time in my life I bought something expensive without researching the company – I just saw the glass and knew my cats needed it.”

A long pause.

“That’s my company.”

She looks at him confused. She must’ve misheard.

“That’s my company. I made it. I actually… just launched it.”

She’s still looking at him, with bemused confusion. He pulls out his phone, opens the Brook website, turns the screen to her, and scrolls down to his photo on the bottom.

“Recognize this guy?”

They still wish they had the security cam footage from the print shop from that day, if only to see the looks on both of their faces. An hour-long conversation followed. Within a few weeks, she’d joined the team.

That really happened.

Now, Nuran is the quiet engine behind everything you don't see at Brook – delicate machinery that keeps the whole thing moving. She's also the calming presence in the team – which, if you've ever worked in ops, you'll know is a minor miracle.

Her background is in economics and finance. She earned her Master's in 2007, in Turkey, and took second place in an international economics competition. She interviewed CEOs of publicly traded companies, and wrote columns on the gold market for an economics magazine. She now writes a column for Çay Dergisi (Tea Magazine) – fitting, because she is, by her own admission, a quite serious tea aficionado. She hasn't watched TV or news in nearly thirty years. She moved to the U.S. and committed fully to an organic, healthy life. She is, in short, winning.

But that wasn’t always the case. After years of working in accounting and finance for Turkish wholesale companies in the U.S., Nuran hit a point where things just weren't clicking. That’s when she discovered ThetaHealing®, she became a ThetaHealing® instructor, and certified instructor of the Jean Adrienne Clearing System - InnerSpeak™, and became an ICF-certified coach. It's a practice she credits with genuinely changing her life – a way of clearing out what's stuck and making room for what's next. It's not a side of her that comes up in spreadsheets. But it's there, quietly running the show.

And it's also why she doesn't see that afternoon at the shop as a chance encounter. On the morning before Andrey walked in, she'd finished a session. Cosmic coincidence? She didn't think so then. She doesn't think so now.

Nuran is a proud cat mom of three. While she hasn't turned on a TV in thirty years, her cats get full screen privileges – complete with bird documentaries on demand. Their downtime is her downtime, and it usually involves Brook and Cat Amazing toys. Full circle, daily.

Selina

Head of Production

Selina is Andrey's longest collaborator. In 2011, she took a chance on a kid from the other side of the world with an idea for a cardboard cat toy. She's been there for every product Cat Amazing and Brook have launched since.

Today, Selina is the maestro behind how a Brook actually comes together – the synchronized symphony of manufacturing, logistics, and assembly that turns parts into product. She and her team are also the brilliance behind Brook's eco-friendly packaging: ingenious design that gets a fragile glass fountain by sea and by land safely into your hands, while keeping its footprint as light as possible.

Selina was born in China and runs the factory she co-founded after graduating university in 2008. The factory specializes in cardboard – boxes, display stands, furniture, toys for children, and yes, toys for pets. The choice of material isn't accidental. Cardboard is reusable, recyclable, and one of the gentlest paths there is for getting beautiful objects to people without leaving a mess behind. She's spent eighteen years committed to that idea, and she's never once thought about changing course.

Cat Amazing was one of Selina's earliest partners – they started with the original classic cat toy and have grown side by side ever since. Brook is the latest chapter, and Selina is just as invested in its success as anyone on the team.

Outside the factory, Selina is a devoted student of traditional Chinese culture. She is endlessly fascinated by the 5,000 years of history and ancestral wisdom her country holds, and her dream is to share more of it with the world – to invite people, in her own words, to embrace China and see it in person, with their own eyes.