His Story

Pawan Motwani was born in Flushing, NY at Booth Memorial Hospital on September 17, 1982 to Vinod and Poonam Motwani. He grew up in Hicksville, Long Island and attended Hicksville High School with his younger sister Natasha. Pawan married his college sweetheart, Jigisha Motwani on April 6, 2008 in Long Island. They have two children - Riya, born on January 11, 2010 and Anjali, born on July 15, 2011. 

He attended Binghamton University and graduated with a degree in accounting with honors. Shortly after graduating, he completed his CPA certification. 

After his formal education, Pawan began his career by working for Ernst & Young, LLP in Assurance & Advisory Business Services.

Pawan joined Blackstone in October 2007 and, most recently, served as Assistant Vice President in the BAAM Finance Group. He was a key and highly-respected member of BAAM’s accounting team. During his time at Blackstone, Pawan took the lead in developing and implementing the complex accounting procedures related to the Strategic Alliance Funds, which have been an important growth initiative for BAAM. He was a critical player for BAAM in coordinating cash movements, revenue recognition, and client reporting for the SAF platform. The smoothness of those operations in his absence has been a testament to his careful and thorough planning. Pawan attacked every project with enthusiasm and delivered thoughtful, creative, and reliable solutions to each challenge he encountered. He was a wonderful teammate and a great friend to us all.

In his personal time he loved to play softball and was the captain in a South Asian league for the past four years, and was also in a basketball league for several years. Most of all, he loved to spend time with his girls - especially traveling and taking them to as many different places as possible every opportunity he had. He was a devout Hindu, a selfless son, and the most extraordinary husband and father. He was a role model to everyone around him. Kindness, integrity, and work ethic were his most valuable traits and were admired by all. His positive energy was contagious and always felt by his family, co-workers, friends and everyone in his presence.

Pawan was initially diagnosed with a locally advanced adrenal cortical carcinoma on April 25, 2011 after going to the doctor for stomach pain. Initial imaging identified a 7.7 X 6.2 cm tumor on the right adrenal gland extending into the inferior vena cava.

He underwent surgery by Dr. Murray Brennan on May 4, 2011. There was lymph node involvement that was seen.

On June 29, 2011 he began chemotherapy – specifically cisplatin and irinotecan (6/30/11 – 8/10/2011). In August, due to progressing back pain, another scan was completed which showed progression of his disease. The tumor had extended through muscle into the spine. There were also liver metastasis, and questionable lung metastasis.

His chemotherapy was changed to the combination of etoposide / cisplatin / doxorubicin, which he received from 8/23/2011 – 1/9/2012, which initially showed a good response. The tumors decreased in his body close to 50%.

However, in early February, he had progression of disease in his liver. He was then started on the chemotherapy combination of streptozosin / mitomycin in early February. This chemotherapy did not show any results and he continued to have progression of his liver disease. In late February and March, he began to take the chemotherapy drug Mitotane. This caused extreme side effects, and again showed no response after several weeks.

The decision was made to attempt bland liver embolization, which was performed twice between the end of March and very beginning of May. Though there was suggestion of a response, Pawan’s health began to slowly deteriorate. He became increasingly fatigued, loss of appetite with discomfort swallowing, and began requiring regular blood transfusions for anemia.

He continued to fight by trying to take down as much liquids and food as possible, and began taking Axitinib (also known as Inlyta), which was in trial phase at the National Institute of Health, and was showing stabilizing results in patients with Adrenal Cortical Carcinoma.

Through his fight, he continued to spend time with his family – especially his two daughters Riya and Anjali (who was born during his fight in July of 2011). He took them to indoor water parks several times, traveled cross country to Disney Land, San Diego, Canada to visit family, the Pocono’s in upstate NY, and Atlantis in the Bahamas. With his wife he went jet skiing on the Hudson, football games (with tailgating), baseball games, and paintball.

Pawan lost his battle with cancer on June 24, 2012. However, he won in the battle of life bringing two beautiful daughters into this world that will carry him inside of them forever.

Pawan believed that the most important thing in life is family, and his extended family was just as important to him as his immediate family, who he was thankful for every single day.  This included the extended Motwani family, the Singh family, the Bhagat family, the Dadlani family, the Bhojwani family, the close friends of he and his wife, and last but not least, The Blackstone Group and all of his colleagues there who gave him the greatest peace of mind in the last year.