Y’s Men Membership News

Thursday, August 27, 2026

New Members: 

Since our last Membership Newsletter we have welcomed one new member:

• Warren Shapiro

Please keep an eye out for our newest member at Y's Men gatherings, introduce yourself, and give him a warm welcome. 



New Member Spotlight: 1 of 2

Joe Pescatore: Finance, Photograpy, and a Life Among Birds

Joe Pescatore's path has been an unconventional one—from fine arts student to senior financial services executive to nationally recognized bird photographer.

One of nine children raised in Ridgefield, New Jersey, Joe earned a BA in Fine Arts from Montclair State and then spent more than 35 years in investment banking. After a decade as a senior director at the New York Mercantile Exchange, he joined Lehman Brothers, where he conceived and headed the firm's Capital Introduction business and directed fundraising that raised more than $600 million for hedge fund clients. He built a similar capability at UBS Investment Bank and later served as Head of Business Development for Bunge Asset Management.

He went on to found Mirasol Advisors, an investment advisory and capital-raising firm for alternative investment managers, which advised on the formation of Energy Capital Partners and its $2.25 billion first-time fund. He published The Handbook of Alternative Investment Strategies through Institutional Investor Inc. and remains a senior adviser to fund managers today. He has belonged to the University Club of New York for 25 years and serves on several of its committees, and is also an active member of the Vero Beach Yacht Club.

Joe's love of photography and nature eventually found its focus in birds. His travels have taken him to some of the world's most remote regions, where he has photographed more than 1,000 species, earning recognition from Audubon and National Geographic and a wide online following. Active with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and several Audubon chapters, he leads fall migration walks for the Aspetuck Land Trust in Weston and spring bird tours in Central Park. His work can be seen on Flickr (jpescatore) and Instagram (@jfp_birds).

Joe and his wife, Joanne, have been together 40 years. They met in Massachusetts, where she grew up, and after a long-distance courtship settled in Bernardsville, New Jersey, to raise their family. They now divide their time between Vero Beach, Florida, and Weston. Between them they have three children and four grandchildren.

Two moments from very different chapters stay with him: September 11, 2001, which he lived through at Lehman's World Financial Center offices, and, at a considerably more carefree 18, Woodstock.

(Interview and Bio by Art Gang)

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New Member Spotlight: 2 of 2

David Master: A Pragmatist's Path from Solar Grants to Global CMO

Born in New York City in 1956, David spent his early childhood in Queens before the family moved to Stamford when he was in fifth grade. His father, a furrier who came up through the Depression, was a craftsman who made coats by hand, working in his Stamford store into his eighties. His mother worked in advertising and corporate communications her whole life, with her last position at Stauffer Chemical in Westport.

An only child, David learned independence early—reinforced by eight-week summers at YMCA Camp Hi-Rock in the Berkshires, where the Wilderness program sent him off to hike the Appalachian and Long Trails and canoe northern Canada. His sons later attended the same camp. After Rippowam High School—where he met Susan, now his wife of 47 years—David chose Dartmouth, drawn by the outdoors. Ever the pragmatist, he balanced environmental studies, taught by luminaries like Dana Meadows, co-author of The Limits to Growth, with economics, which he found useful but pure drudgery.

Graduating in 1978, he spent years in New Hampshire consulting on solar, small-scale hydro, and other grant-funded energy projects, discovering a talent for turning complex ideas into winning proposals. When son Jonathan arrived in 1984, David traded scraping by for a Yale MBA (1987) and began a climb through financial services: building new business units at Connecticut Bank and Trust and Chase Manhattan, consulting at the Optima Group, and reviving a moribund mutual fund family at Prudential Financial. After four years at Legg Mason, he became Chief Marketing Officer of Janus in 2014, helping engineer its comeback and, after its merger, becoming Global CMO of Janus Henderson, a $500 billion asset manager, where he built a 200-person worldwide organization. When a new CEO came in with whom he clashed on strategy, he decided 66 was a good age to retire.

David and Susan's two sons both work on the business side of the music industry: Jonathan, a senior executive at Interscope, lives in Westport with two of David's grandchildren; Andrew does digital marketing for musicians in California, where a third grandchild arrives any day. Recently re-settled in Norwalk, near Saugatuck, David is busy with house projects, weighing a return to his father's other passion—gardening—and looking forward to new friendships through the Y's Men.

(Interview and Bio by Clarence Hayes)

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Thank You:

We thank these Y’s Men who have referred new members in the past six months:

Membership Recruitment:

Continued membership growth is crucial for the club’s long-term health and financial stability. Do you have a friend who would be a good fit? Share the membership application link (click here) with them.

Best to you all,

Clarence Hayes



Membership Chairman

Y’s Men of Westport/Weston

(203) 818-7436

clarencewhayes@gmail.com