50-year-old Pandit was born in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India to a moderately affluent Marathi[2] Karhade Brahmin family. At the age of 16, he moved to the United States to attend college at Columbia University. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering in 1976 and 1977 respectively, and later earned a Ph.D. in Finance in 1986.[3] He is a trustee at Columbia University. He was a junior finance professor at Indiana University Bloomington in the mid-1980s before joining Morgan Stanley. As head of Morgan Stanley's institutional-securities division from 1994 to 2000, he pushed the company into more electronic trading and helped build the firm's prime brokerage services that cater to hedge funds. He led the institutional-securities business from 2000 until March 2005. Pandit and his wife Swati reside at Central Park West and 81st Street. The apartment was purchased from the late actor Tony Randall for $17.85 million in September 2007. The 10-room apartment has 20 windows facing Central Park.