NY Times biz desk hires Pesta as enterprise editor

New York Times business editor Dean Murphy sent out the following announcement on Tuesday morning:

Jesse Pesta, a former Page One editor for investigative and enterprise projects at The Wall Street Journal, will be joining BizDay next month as enterprise editor.

Jesse is returning to New York from New Delhi, where he moved last year to become a reporter and deputy bureau chief. His final story from India, which ran two weeks ago, told the tale of a young woman who says her in-laws set her on fire — the second case of wife-burning in her family. An accomplished photographer, Jesse both reported and shot the project.

Jesse spent more than two decades at The Journal, where the range of reporting and editing assignments he mastered makes him ideally suited for overseeing and elevating BizDay’s broad array of enterprise.

Aside from two tours in India, he was based in Hong Kong during the Asian economic crisis, launched the paper’s Saturday Money & Investing section and was an editor on Page One for six years. His Page One work included editing the “What They Know” privacy project, a Pulitzer finalist, and “The Lobotomy Files,” one of the paper’s most ambitious interactives.

He also has an eye for great tales. He has written about Cambodia’s bamboo trains, Himalayan hermits startled by traffic jams, the world’s fastest oceanliner, and New Delhi’s hard-luck coin divers. He even introduced the world to a paramilitary motorcycle stunt rider who wears a peacock on his head.

Jesse is no stranger to many of us. He was Emily Steel’s editor on the privacy series, sat next to Pui-Wing Tam when based in Hong Kong and edited Ron Lieber’s personal finance column for Money & Investing. He’s also worked with Hilary Stout, Dionne Searcey, Nick Wingfield, Sue Craig, Conor Dougherty, Steve Eder, and Peter Lattman.

Conor, who collaborated with him on Page One stories, describes Jesse as among the Journal’s elite – someone “who I really looked up to and learned from.”

“Jesse is a real pro,” Conor says.

Jesse hails from a newspaper family. His parents published a small-town paper in Indiana for many years. “As a kid that’s where I learned the trade, writing about barn fires, photographing fair queens and documenting big tomatoes,” he says.  “The editor (dad) was tough, but it all worked out.”

He starts Sept. 21.