Ethan Penner, a Calabasas businessman, author, and educator with a storied career in real estate finance, has officially announced his intention to run for California governor in 2026 as an independent. On his campaign website, Penner says he is running to “disrupt the failing two-party system.”

"I believe that our political system and our political situation, particularly in California, where I make my home, is desperately broken,” he said in a recent interview.

Penner has described his campaign as focused on abundance, affordability, safety, and freedom.

I am attracted to desperate situations,” Penner said when confirming his candidacy. “I think California is in a desperate situation today. It suffers from incredible, incredible mismanagement. I love a good challenge. I love helping people. And I feel that circles a lot of those needs for me.”

Platform and Criticism

Penner says his central theme is “reviving the American dream of social mobility” and “rewarding ambition and hard work.” He links those ideas to taxation, education, energy, and homelessness.

As part of his platform, Penner has proposed building new towns to house homeless populations and scaling back the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in rural areas to facilitate faster development. “I want to make California a vibrant place to live,” he said.

He has also criticized Governor Gavin Newsom, particularly on wildfire management.

Comparing California with Austria, Penner argued that leadership has failed to take responsibility. “They’ve successfully never had anything like we’ve had in California, because they actually pay attention – they actually care,” he said. “People in government in Austria go, ‘Gee, I have a job. My job is to make sure that my citizens have a decent quality of life and don’t suffer disasters.’ Our governor doesn’t think that way, and our government doesn’t think that way.”

Storied Background in High Finance

He began his Wall Street career at Drexel Burnham Lambert before moving to Morgan Stanley, where he launched the firm’s mortgage credit trading business.

In the 1990s, he led Nomura Asset Capital Corporation in New York, where he was sometimes referred to as the “boy wonder of the commercial mortgage-backed securities business.”

Penner is widely credited with helping to create the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, or CMBS, in which bonds are backed by pools of commercial property loans. The innovation expanded liquidity in real estate and helped define an era in finance. Bloomberg News reported that Penner earned $93 million ($185 million in today’s dollars) in his last three years at Nomura.

After leaving Nomura in 1998, Penner spent seven years away from Wall Street, which he described as a time focused on balancing his life, building a close-knit family, and living in Hawaii. He returned to the industry in 2008 with CBRE Capital Partners, an investment platform in partnership with CBRE that raised more than $600 million.

In 2015, he founded Mosaic Real Estate Investors, also known as MREC Management. At its peak, the firm managed close to $1 billion in assets. In 2024, Penner launched Reven Office REIT, an office-focused real estate investment trust that he chairs.

Public Commentary

Penner has often spoken bluntly on financial and public policy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he opposed federal proposals to bail out large property owners.

The idea of bailing out owners of real estate does not even make sense to me,” he said in 2020. “What could make that rise to the top of anyone’s priority list when so many individual people are suffering and need help. These businesses should be allowed to fail.”

He described heavily leveraged hotel and shopping center owners as “greedy and risk-loving, or the clueless.”

In 2023, he told the New York Times that higher interest rates were straining the market: “There has been a systematic holding of the breath, with everyone hoping that the rapid increase in rates by the Fed would be just as rapidly decreased, allowing people to breathe easier and rates would be restored to lower levels. But that hasn’t happened, and there is only so much time that a lender can provide a borrower in terms of patience and looking the other way, especially once lease income starts to shrink.”

Author, Teacher, and Family

Penner is also known as a writer and educator. His 2023 book, Greatness Is a Choice, was described in reviews as a collection of personal and professional reflections. “We live in a very confusing time and the need for visionary leadership, action and courage is unprecedented,” he has said about the book. “It is my hope that in my small way, I can inspire many others to find their visionary selves.”

He publishes a newsletter called the “Friday Five,” writes regular commentary under the heading “Ethan’s Observations,” and has taught at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School and USC’s Marshall School of Business.

Penner grew up in Yonkers, New York, the son of a conservative rabbi, and has described his upbringing as working class.

I ask myself as I live my life, would my mom and dad be proud of how I'm living the life that they gave me and their parents gave me, and that the sacrifices they made to bring me here? Would they be would they view what I'm doing as honoring them? And I think that I've been on this path of prayer for the last seven or eight years, and I pray every morning. It's really, really affected my life in a profound way, and this (running for public office) is one of those ways.”

Penner is married to a former professional athlete and has five children.

The 2026 California Governor's Race

Penner has ruled out running as a Democrat and describes his candidacy as nonpartisan.

I didn't see anybody like me raising their hand to go do this crazy thing. And I figured it has to be done. I love my children. I love our country. I love our state,” he said.

California’s Top Two primary system will determine whether Penner’s message can connect with voters outside the Democratic and Republican bases. There are more than five million Californians registered with no party preference.

IVN recently reported on the other candidates running for California Governor in 2026. You can read our coverage here.