Herb Morgan comes to this race from the investment business. His work involved managing client portfolios, building an advisory firm and making decisions about financial risk. As Controller, he would move from managing investments to directing state financial operations and oversight.
From founder to chief investment officer
Morgan founded Efficient Market Advisors in 2004. When Cantor Fitzgerald Investment Advisors acquired its business in 2017, Cantor named him senior managing director and chief investment officer of the EMA division. The announcement put EMA’s assets under advisement at roughly $1.1 billion. In 2018, Cantor reported $1.4 billion under management and advisement. Those figures describe the advisory business at the time of each announcement. [Cantor Fitzgerald][Cantor Fitzgerald]
What he managed at Cantor, 2017–2026
EMA became Cantor Fitzgerald Managed ETF Portfolios in January 2023. Its March 2025 disclosure names Morgan and Glenn Ambach as managers of conservative, moderate and aggressive 11–19 year strategies. The platform reported $944.522 million in total assets: $584.7 million discretionary and $359.9 million nondiscretionary. That figure covers the disclosed advisory platform, not all of Cantor Fitzgerald. [Cantor Asset Management][Private Shares Fund]
Portfolios built with exchange-traded funds
The disclosed portfolios held funds such as iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, Invesco QQQ Trust and Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF. Morgan managed the strategies holding those funds; he was not the manager of the underlying iShares, Invesco or Vanguard funds. His responsibility was to choose and manage the portfolios, rather than run the funds they held. [Cantor Asset Management]
Education and financial experience
Morgan earned an economics degree with honors from UC Santa Cruz. The Private Shares Fund’s trustee biography describes more than three decades in investment management and records his retirement in 2026. His academic training and subsequent career both center on finance. [Private Shares Fund]
Public pension service
Morgan’s campaign biography says Mayor Jerry Sanders appointed him to San Diego’s employee retirement board and fellow trustees twice elected him chair. That work brought investment experience into public pension governance, where decisions affect employees, retirees and taxpayers. [Herb Morgan campaign]
His case for changing the office
Morgan proposes publishing spending transactions sooner and using a standing monitoring operation to flag suspect payments for human review. The practical aim is to find problems while money is moving, rather than leave taxpayers waiting for a report years later. [Herb Morgan campaign]
“transaction-level detail and near real-time reporting”2026 candidate statement · Secretary of State voter guide
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