Los Angeles Office Market Outlook

Ethan is the Founder and Managing Partner, CIO of MREC Management, LLC. He is a recognized pioneer in the fields of real estate and finance with a 35-year career marked by filling voids and responding to unseen or poorly understood opportunities. Most consequently, he is credited with being the primary driver in the creation of the Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities market while at Nomura Securities, for which he received broad recognition including being named one of the U.S. Real Estate Industry’s 100 icons of the 20th century. In 2011, Real Estate Forum voted him one of the Real Estate Industry’s 65 living legends in their 65th anniversary issue. In 2008, Penner founded and served as President of CBRE Capital Partners, a real estate debt investment platform that successfully raised and managed over $600 million from institutional and high net worth investors. CBRE Capital Partners substantially exited all investments in 2014. Ethan is also committed to improving the lives of others and enhancing awareness and does so in a number of ways including; Teaching – he currently serves as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, and previously held the same capacity at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business; Writing – he maintains a blog and has had many articles published in a variety of publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Wharton Real Estate Review and the Institutional Real Estate Investor; Public speaking – he is a frequent featured speaker at industry conferences and universities; Philanthropy & Civic involvement – He is a member of the Advisory Board of the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute, in 1996 he founded the Walt Frazier Youth Foundation which provided internships to teenagers at major U.S. corporations in New York City, and has been on numerous boards including that of The League, which had a competition-based, in-school community service model, KIND, which is dedicated to bringing education and opportunity to woman, and The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is dedicated to enhancing awareness to combat hate; and Fitness – he is the founder of Fitwall, LLC, a company aimed at revolutionizing the exercise industry through its patented Fitwall product. Ethan is married to Marisol Penner, a former professional athlete and native of Venezuela, and they have five children and reside in Los Angeles.

In his native Australia, Mr. Herscu earned a degree in Economics and Accounting at Monash University, Melbourne. After immigrating to the United States, he spent several years working in mergers and acquisitions for Shearson Lehman Brothers in New York City.  Eventually, Mr. Herscu decided to put his entrepreneurial passion into play, forming HQ Entertainment. Within a few short years, the company had turned into the largest vending company in the West Coast, owning and operating 20,000 vending machines throughout regional malls and shopping centers, including children’s rides, candy and soda machines, ATMs, and pay phones. Honing in further on opportunities in the shopping center arena, Mr. Herscu established a Christmas and Easter holiday photo company, with sales exceeding $30 million. Capitalizing on a growing consumer demand for gift cards, he built what would become the largest independent shopping mall gift card company in the U.S., with sales exceeding $300 million. Notably, he also established the largest double-decker carousel company in U.S. during this time, with over 2 million annual riders.  In 2012, Mr. Herscu embarked on an ambitious initiative to acquire office buildings in strong sub-markets throughout West Los Angeles, with the intent of leading the Creative Office niche. In less than 3 years, his firm has acquired 12 buildings. Since being acquired, the properties have been utterly transformed, serving the needs of top technology, entertainment, and new media firms in Los Angeles such as WPP, Warner Brothers, Scopely, HSI Productions, Lunchbox, and more. Flanked by a strong design team, Mr. Herscu’s adaptive reuse of these properties has shaped creative office space that is as inspiring as it is beautiful. Here, companies can forge their brand and let ideas collide and come to fruition.   Finally, Mr. Herscu is active in the startup community as an angel investor and also owns the fine Italian dining restaurant, Toscanova, found at The Commons in Calabasas and at Westfield Century City Mall.

Joshua Love is the president and founder for Kinema Fitness. Joshua has two decades of fitness and wellness experience. He has helped lead Kinema Fitness to incredible growth through design, development and operations. His focus is on a total wellness approach that includes holistic, mindfulness, nutrition, and physical fitness.