Angela Chao, a shipping company chief executive and member of a family prominent in American politics and business deals with China, died in car accident on Sunday, in Texas. It was 50.
Her family confirmed her death. Details of the accident were not immediately available.
Ms. Chao has been since 2018 the president and CEO of the Chao family’s Foremost Group, which operates a global fleet of bulk carriers. The ships are used to transport commodities such as iron ore and soybeans.
She was the sister of Elaine Chao, who served as Secretary of Transportation under former President Donald J. Trump as well as Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush. Elaine Chao is married to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader.
The Chao family, headed by Angela and Elaine Chao’s father, James SC Chao, stands out because of its deep political and business ties in both 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 China’s president and died in 2022.
Ms. Chao, along with her father — both US citizens — were among the few foreigners to serve on the boards of some of China’s biggest companies. Both were holding company directors for China State Shipbuilding, a state-owned enterprise that builds ships for the Chinese military as well as the Foremost Group and other clients. Ms. Chao was also a former board member of the Bank of China, a top lender to the shipbuilding company, and a former vice-chairman of the China Foreign Trade Council, a promotional group created by the Chinese government.
“Although she was born in America, she never forgot her roots and throughout her life helped build bridges of understanding between East and West,” Mr Chao said of his daughter in a statement.
“Losing her at such a young age is something we never imagined and our whole family is devastated with 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 grew up in Harrison, NY, an affluent town in Westchester County. She graduated from Harvard College in 1994, completing her studies in three years.
After a brief break in finance at Smith Barney, he joined the family business in 1996, later earning an MBA at Harvard Business School. As chief executive of Foremost Group, Ms Chao emphasized orders for new, more environmentally sustainable ships that can burn alternative fuels.
“As a little girl growing up, I was always fascinated by what my father did,” she said in a 2019 interview.
“I’ve always been very proud to be a part of that legacy,” she added.
The Chao family’s business ties to China drew attention when Elaine Chao was transportation secretary under President Trump, who imposed broad tariffs on Chinese imports. A 2021 report by the Transportation Department’s inspector general said Elaine Chao had used her office staff to help family members, but two Justice Department departments declined to launch a criminal investigation.
Angela Chao denied in the 2019 interview that Foremost had focused on China beyond what most dry bulk companies have in a world in which China is by far the leading manufacturer.
She was a consulting director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and a member of the President’s Council of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was also a founding member of the Asian American Foundation, which opposes discrimination, slander, and violence against Asian Americans, and was co-chair of its education committee.
Ms. Chao married Bruce Wasserstein, an American financier, shortly before his death in 2009. She then married Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist in Austin, Texas, who is also a member of the Boston Celtics.
The journalist Lally Weymouth said she met Ms. Chao around the time of Mr. Wasserstein’s death, comforting her new friend at dinner parties in Manhattan.
“In this tough town, she was genuine,” said Ms. Weymouth, who is the daughter of the late Kathryn Graham, who was the editor of the Washington Post. “He got along with everyone.”
In addition to her father and Elaine Chao, Mrs. Chao is survived by three other sisters, her husband and their 3-year-old son.
Siyi Zhao contributed to the research.
