Our Team
Neil Jacobson - Managing Partner
Neil Jacobson 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, and held that position until January 2020. During his tenure as President of Geffen Records, Mr. Jacobson oversaw the signing of Darkroom Records, home to Billie Eilish. In January 2020, Mr. Jacobson founded Hallwood Media, an independent music management company exclusively focused on songwriters and producers. Over the last 24 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 $150 million. For the past four 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. Mr. Jacobson attended the Berklee College of Music. 
Todd Lowen - Managing Partner
Todd Lowen has 22 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 focus on SPACs. Over the course of his career, 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 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. Mr. Lowen joined Cantor Fitzgerald as a Senior Managing Director in 2021 to manage their Event Driven business which included the continued build out of their best in class SPAC division. He has since moved on to focus entirely on HMV. 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.
Chuck Ciongoli
Chuck Ciongoli is the former CFO of Universal Music Group, and is a dynamic executive and business leader with more than 40 years of hands-on executive management experience in the Entertainment Industry in finance and operations. During his tenure at Universal Music, he was instrumental in transforming sixth-place MCA Music into world’s largest music company – Universal Music Group. While there, Mr. Ciongoli played a leading role in the acquisition, integration and management of key labels and operations. Mr. Ciongoli supervised the acquisition of Geffen Records, Interscope Records, and Republic Records which now stand as the tentpole labels of UMG. 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 UMG and the music industry before a variety of governmental and regulatory bodies.
Mike Biggane
Mike Biggane has been a hugely influential figure in the music industry for over a decade. From 2014-2019, he served as Spotify's Global Head of Curation, leading the production of an editorial guide for Spotify's Global Music Team. He managed over 180 editors globally to oversee new music submissions and the promotion of Spotify’s programming values. Mike most recently served as the Executive Vice President at Universal Music Group. He was hand-chosen by Chairman & CEO Lucian Grainge to oversee music strategy & tactics. While at UMG, Mike developed numerous groundbreaking marketing strategies, including a creator first promotion strategy, which led to a 150% improvement in advertising performance, a UGC Remix strategy which resulted in 15B+ commercial streams and 40M+ videos on TikTok, and a developed playlist strategy, which resulted in a 200% increase in revenue from playlist products in 2 years. Mike brings to the HMV team extensive experience and intimate knowledge of music technology as it relates to distribution, marketing, and consumption.
Paul Hourican
Paul Hourican is the former Global Head of Music Operations for TikTok, joining the business in November 2019 to build multiple high performing teams with responsibility for strategy, partnerships and execution across TikTok’s music efforts. During his tenure, TikTok grew from a promising start-up into an integral and essential part of the global music industry delivering a number of firsts along the way including ‘In The Mix’ the biggest live stream in history of the platform, the launch of SoundOn, TikTok’s distribution platform, multiple Cannes Lions for groundbreaking artist partnerships and launching the TikTok presence of global stars from Ed Sheeran to Abba.
A lifelong music and pop culture fan who works at the intersection of music and tech, Paul previously worked in global music roles for YouTube as Head of International Artist Marketing and MTV Networks International as Head of Talent and Music. Paul is from London, having graduated with a business degree in Marketing & E-Commerce from the University of Westminster.
Henry Segel
Henry Segel formerly served as Vice President for The Music Acquisition Corporation. Henry assisted Neil Jacobson in launching Hallwood Media, and as an A&R coordinator and manager, managed a roster of producers, songwriters, and artists through deal negotiating, A&R-ing records and talent sourcing. He has marketed, run due diligence, and helped to sell numerous catalogs to several funds. 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.
Riya Kapoor
Riya Kapoor serves as an Analyst at Hallwood Media Ventures and brings a fresh perspective to the team, further strengthening our understanding and connection to youth culture. Riya recently graduated from Harvard University with an honors degree in English, and is already an accomplished singer, songwriter, dancer, and entrepreneur, She has danced professionally for more than 10 years, training primarily with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in New York City. She is currently recording her second EP with Universal Music Group’s Grammy-winning producer Poo Bear and Shndo. Her startup, Matinet.ai developed an action recognition model to identify and compile moments from classical performance videos and revive them as short-form highlight reels. Matinet.ai won the Spark Grant award from the Harvard Innovation Lab and was further selected by Righthand Capital for exclusive mentorship. She is currently pursuing a MSc from Oxford University in applied linguistics and language acquisition. We look forward to leveraging Riya’s interests, perspectives, talents and acumen to deliver value to HMV investors and partner companies.