Leadership

Neil Jacobson, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, is a 20 year veteran of the music business. Mr. Jacobson spent the majority of his career at Interscope Geffen A&M Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, where he held positions as a publicist, Senior Vice President and Executive Vice President, and participated in the management of artists and producers such as will.i.am, Robin Thicke and Jeff Bhasker. In January 2016, Mr. Jacobson was appointed President of Geffen Records, a historic record label re-established under Interscope Geffen A&M Records. During his tenure as President of Geffen Records, Mr. Jacobson oversaw the signing of Darkroom Records – home to Billie Eilish. Mr. Jacobson founded Hallwood Media, an independent music management company exclusively focused on songwriters and producers. Over the last 13 months acting as a trusted advisor to artists and creators, Mr. Jacobson has helped coordinate the sale of artist catalogs for an aggregate total in excess of $100 million. For the past three years, Mr. Jacobson has been a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), which serves as a global leadership community to improve lives, businesses and the world.

Todd Lowen, our Chief Operating Officer and one of our directors, has 20 years of experience in finance and investment. Mr. Lowen spent the majority of his career in the Equity Derivatives businesses of Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, where he advised institutional investors, such as hedge funds and pension funds, on event driven investment strategies relating to, and including, merger arbitrage, spin-offs/splits, exchange offers, tenders, and special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”). In September of 2016, Mr. Lowen joined Olivetree Financial, LLC as a Managing Director to further establish its U.S. Event Driven Business, building a team around similar strategies, with a particular recent focus on SPACs. Over the course of his 20 year career in finance, Mr. Lowen has advised over 250 institutional investors on investment and trading strategies across 500+ unique mergers, spin-offs, exchange offers, tenders, and SPACs. Most recently, Mr. Lowen has re-focused on the SPAC market, providing insight, analysis, and investment strategy around the SPAC asset class, covering entities from their pre-IPO filings all the way through to their status as public companies and through consummation of their ultimate respective business combinations. Away from the office, Mr. Lowen is actively involved with Success Academy Charter Schools, which help provide world class education opportunities to children from all backgrounds in New York, as well as City Harvest, a food rescue and re-distribution organization in New York City.

Michael Levitt serves as a member of our board of directors and brings extensive private equity, investment banking and management experience to the Company. Michael Levitt has been the Chief Executive Officer of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P. (“Kayne”) since July 2016. Prior to joining Kayne, Mr. Levitt served as a vice chairman with Apollo Global Management, LLC (NYSE: APO) from April 2012 to May 2016. Mr. Levitt joined Apollo following Apollo’s acquisition of Stone Tower Capital LLC (“Stone Tower”), a mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance, restructuring and debt finance firm, in 2012. Mr. Levitt founded Stone Tower in 2001 and grew the firm to become a leading alternative credit manager with approximately $17 billion in credit-focused alternative assets under management at the time of its acquisition. During his tenure at Stone Tower, Mr. Levitt served as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer. Before founding Stone Tower, Mr. Levitt worked as a partner at the private equity firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Incorporated, where he was involved in media and consumer investments. Earlier in his career, Mr. Levitt served as the co-head of the investment banking division of Smith Barney Inc. Mr. Levitt began his investment banking career at Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MS), where he oversaw corporate finance and advisory businesses related to private equity firms and non-investment grade companies. Mr. Levitt currently serves on the board of Core Scientific, Inc, as well as the boards of Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund Inc. (NYSE: KYN), Kayne Anderson NextGen Energy & Infrastructure Inc. (NYSE: KMF), and Kayne Anderson BDC, LLC. Mr. Levitt is also a member of the Visiting Committee of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and the Trustee of the University of Michigan Law School’s Cook Trust. Over the years, Mr. Levitt has worked with numerous philanthropic organizations, including Make-A-Wish Foundations of America and New York, and the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund.

Ben Silverman serves as a member of our board of directors. Mr. Silverman is an entrepreneur and producer with nearly 30 years of experience in the media and entertainment industries. Mr. Silverman served as Co-Chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios from 2007-2009. Mr. Silverman won Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his role as a producer for “The Office” and was nominated a number of times for his role producing “The Office” and “Ugly Betty” and over the course of his career. Silverman has created and executive produced major network, cable, and digital platform hits, including Golden Globe and Peabody award-winning shows “The Office”, “Ugly Betty”, “The Biggest Loser”, and “The Tudors”, as well as hits like “Jane The Virgin” at The CW, “Marco Polo” and “Flaked” with Will Arnett and Mitch Hurwitz for Netflix.

Since 2016 Mr. Silverman has served as the Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Propagate Content, LLC, a firm founded to create and produce all forms of content for distribution across a variety of platforms around the world. Additionally, Mr.Silverman founded two acclaimed “super indies” in the media industry, Electus, LLC and Reveille Productions. Silverman founded Reveille Productions in 2002 in order to exploit international media formats in the United States. Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine Group acquired Reveille Productions for $125 million in 2008. Mr. Silverman launched Electus, LLC in 2009, and took a leadership role in digital content, building the #1 comedy site on the internet, CollegeHumor, and extending projects to multiple platforms, including numerous digital projects and partnerships with Yahoo!, Facebook and YouTube.

Tunde Balogun serves as a member of our board of directors. Mr. Balogun is an experienced media and music industry entrepreneur. Since 2013 Mr. Balogun has served as President of LOVERENAISSANCE, LLC (“LVRN”), a diversified record label and media management company, which he co-founded. LVRN is composed of LVRN Records, LLC (a recorded music company), LVRN Publishing, LLC (a music publishing company), LVRN Mgmt, LLC (a music management company) and Kids Against Cubicles (a tv/film production company). LVRN artists include three time Grammy nominee 6lack, platinum album selling Summer Walker and Dram, amongst others. Through the management of these companies Mr. Balogun has developed a strong track record of running multi-vertical music businesses, identifying and implementing innovative strategies, and leveraging opportunities and relationships in the music and finance industries. Mr. Balogun has served on the Board of the Atlanta Creative Industries Fund for Invest Atlanta since 2017. Mr. Balogun also serves on the Global Citizen Entertainment Advisory Board.

Chuck Ciongoli is the former CFO of the Universal Music Group, and is a dynamic executive and business leader with more than 20 years of hands-on executive management experience in the Entertainment Industry in finance and operations. During his tenure at the Universal Music Group, he was instrumental in transforming sixth-place MCA Music into world’s largest music company – the Universal Music Group. While there, Mr. Ciongoli played a leading role in the acquisition, integration and management of key labels and operations.

With a proven track record of building effective teams and supporting financial and operational infrastructure, his experience includes everything from accounting and control, business analysis, mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing activities, audits, settlements, and investor relations. Given his vast understanding of music and entertainment including digital and media businesses and known for being articulate and a gifted advocate, Mr. Ciongoli has regularly been an expert witness for the Universal Music Group and the music industry before a variety of governmental and regulatory bodies.

Travis Rosenblatt is a former major and indie label A&R turned software developer & entrepreneur. He founded A&R SaaS provider, Meddling, which has provided modern artist discovery services to the majority of major labels since 2015. Over the course of his decade in the music industry, Mr. Rosenblatt has also run a label dedicated to international releases in the U.S. for Universal Music Group, managed a variety of recording artists including Rick Ross, and was a member of the Techstars Music 2019 class focused on creating a new global publishing royalty collection platform.

Amit Krispin, Esq. is an entertainment attorney, talent manager and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. As a solo practitioner for the last fifteen years, Amit has provided corporate and transactional legal counsel to major label recording artists, chart-topping producers and songwriters, independent record companies and start-ups, as well as content creators and reality TV personalities. In aggregate, he has personally negotiated agreements totalling over $100M in value. In 2015, at the behest of some of his clients who required additional creative services, Amit opened a boutique management and consulting firm called Prim8 Music, which guides and develops the careers of songwriters, music producers & recording artists and provides business and A&R consulting for third party projects. Most recently, in the Summer of 2020, Amit merged his producer and songwriter management roster with Neil Jacobson’s Hallwood Media and became its SVP of Business Development & Acquisitions. Amit received his bachelor's and law degree from the University of Maryland, where he was a recipient of the Presidential Scholarship for academic achievement as well as a Notation for Excellence. He is licensed to practice law in the State of California, where he currently resides with his wife and two young boys.

Henry Segel is an associate for The Music Acquisition Corporation. Henry assisted Neil Jacobson in launching Hallwood Media as an A&R coordinator and manager. Prior to Hallwood Media, Henry worked at Geller Advisors LLC, where he assisted the team in establishing their West Coast Office. Henry also interned with Investec PLC London, working alongside the Business Services research team. Henry received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Yale University, where he also studied music theory and composition. Henry played varsity football at Yale, where his team won two Ivy League Championships in his four years on the team.