Angela Chao, CEO of Foremost Group, dies in car accident

Angela Chao, a shipping company chief executive and member of a family prominent in U.S. politics and trade with China, died in a car accident on Sunday, Texas. She was 50 years old.

His family confirmed his death. Details of the accident were not immediately available.

Ms. Chao has served since 2018 as president and CEO of the Chao family’s Foremost Group, which operates a global fleet of bulk carriers. Ships are used to transport products like iron ore and soybeans.

She was the sister of Elaine Chao, who served as transportation secretary under former President Donald J. Trump as well as labor secretary under President George W. Bush. Elaine Chao is married to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate.

The Chao family, led by Angela and Elaine Chao’s father, James SC Chao, is notable for its deep political and business ties in the United States and China. Mr. Chao fled mainland China to Taiwan in the late 1940s with the defeated Nationalists. He moved to the United States in 1958 and helped found the Foremost Group in 1964. He later cultivated a close relationship with Jiang Zemin, a former classmate from Shanghai who became president of China and died in 2022.

Ms. Chao and her father — both U.S. citizens — were among the few foreigners who served on the boards of some of China’s largest companies. Both were directors of the holding company of China State Shipbuilding, a state-owned company that makes ships for the Chinese military as well as Foremost Group and other clients. Ms. Chao was also a former board member of the Bank of China, a major lender to the shipbuilder, and a former vice chair of the China Foreign Trade Council, an advocacy group established by the Chinese government .

“Although born in America, she never forgot her roots and contributed throughout her life to building bridges of understanding between East and West,” Mr. Chao said of his daughter in a press release.

“Losing her at such a young age is something we never imagined, and our entire family is devastated by grief,” he said.

The youngest of six daughters, Angela Chao was born in 1973 in Syosset, New York, on the north shore of Long Island, and raised in Harrison, New York, a wealthy town in Westchester County. She graduated from Harvard College in 1994 and completed her studies in three years.

After a brief interlude in finance at Smith Barney, she joined the family business in 1996, later earning an MBA from Harvard Business School. As chief executive of Foremost Group, Ms. Chao has focused on orders for new, more environmentally sustainable vessels capable of burning alternative fuels.

“As a little girl, growing up, I was always fascinated by what my father did,” she said in a 2019 interview.

“I have always been very proud to be part of this heritage,” she added.

The Chao family’s business ties to China gained attention when Elaine Chao was transportation secretary under President Trump, who imposed broad tariffs on imports from China. A 2021 report from the Department of Transportation’s inspector general said Elaine Chao used her office staff to help family members, but two Justice Department divisions declined to conduct a criminal investigation.

Angela Chao denied in the 2019 interview that Foremost was focusing on China beyond what most dry bulk carriers do in a world where China is by far the largest manufacturer.

She was advisory director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and member of the President’s Council of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was also a founding member of the Asian American Foundation, which opposes discrimination, slander and violence against Asian Americans, and served as co-chair of its education committee.

Ms. Chao married Bruce Wasserstein, an American financier, shortly before his death in 2009. She later married Jim Breyera venture capitalist from Austin, Texas, who also co-owns the Boston Celtics.

The journalist Lally Weymouth said she had gotten to know Ms. Chao around the time of Mr. Wasserstein’s death, consoling her new friend at dinners in Manhattan.

“In this tough town, she was genuine,” said Ms. Weymouth, daughter of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. “She got along with everyone.”

In addition to her father and Elaine Chao, Ms. Chao is survived by three other sisters, her husband and their 3-year-old son.

Siyi Zhao contributed to the research.