BEIJING (AP) Shawn Wang, the chief financial officer of leading Chinese search engine Baidu.com, has died in an accident, the company said.
Shawn Wang joined Baidu in 2004 and helped take Baidu public in the U.S. on the Nasdaq stock exchange the following year.
He died on Dec. 27 during a Christmas holiday vacation in China, the company said in a notice on its Web site. The company did not give further details, and officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.
"Shawn's leadership and vision helped transform Baidu into a leading U.S. public company, and his presence will be greatly missed," Robin Li, chairman and chief executive said in the statement.
Baidu.com is the dominant search engine in China, with a 60.7 percent market share, according to research firm Analysys International. U.S. giant Google Inc. is in second place with about 23.7 percent.