Angela Chao, the CEO of New York-based shipping company Foremost Group, has died in a car accident at the age of 50, according to a news release.
“It is with deep sadness that Foremost Group announces the passing of Angela Chao in a tragic car accident. Angela Chao was a formidable executive and shipping industry leader, as well as a proud and loving daughter, sister, aunt, wife and mother,” according to a statement from the Foremost Group published in MarineLog.
The Foremost Group did not elaborate on the details of her death in the news release.
Chao was the youngest daughter of the Foremost Group’s founder and honorary chairman, James S.C. Chao, and the sister of former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, wife of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
According to Angela Chao’s website, she earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a graduate degree from Harvard Business School (HBS). While attending HBS, Chao wrote a case study on ocean carriers that is still part of the required curriculum for first-year HBS students, according to the Foremost Group.
Chao joined the Foremost Group in 1996, the firm her father, James, a former sea captain born in China, founded in New York in 1964. She became chair and CEO of the company in 2018.
The Foremost Group is a global dry bulk shipping company whose clients include Cargill Inc., Louis Dreyfus Commodities Rotterdam and NYK Line, according to the company. The Foremost Group has a fleet of 33 ships valued at $1.2 billion.
In a 2020 interview with FreightWaves, Chao discussed the effects the coronavirus pandemic could have on the global shipping industry.
In addition to serving as CEO of the Foremost Group, Chao served as a board member of the American Bureau of Shipping Council and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s International Maritime Business Department advisory board.
The U.S. Coast Guard Academy said in a post on X that Chao was “a trailblazer in the maritime industry and a true friend of the Academy.”
Chao lived in Austin, Texas.