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AUSTIN, Texas - The top Chinese language search engine company Baidu.com, Inc., among the most used  search Web sites in the world, lost its chief financial officer Shawn Wang, who died in an accident on December 27 while on vacation during the Christmas holidays, the company said in a statement. Under Wang's leadership Baidu, sometimes referred to as China's version of top search engine Google, accomplished growth achieved by no other Chinese company beforehand, earning him "CFO of the Year" honors by CFO Magazine in 2005. No details on the death of Wang, who was 40, were given in the statement which appeared on Baidu's Web site Sunday. Sadness and Shock Over Sudden Death Baidu employees expressed feelings of loss over Wang's sudden death, which occurred in China. "We are all completely shocked and deeply saddened by this tragic news," said Baidu's Chairman and CEO Robin Li. "Shawn's leadership and vision helped transform Baidu into a leading US public company, and his presence will be greatly missed. Shawn was not only a tremendous leader within our company, but also a wonderful friend to us all. We extend our deepest sympathy and most sincere condolences to Shawn's family," said Li. Holiday Accident Claims CFO of China's Top Search Firm Baidu During his time at Beijing-based Baidu, which began in September 2004, Wang helped the company develop a financial reporting system which conformed to the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and helped Baidu gain a successful initial public offering on NASDAQ in August 2005 that recently led to inclusion in the NASDAQ-100 list, China's first company in the index.. Until a successor can be found Baidu, a self described technology-based media company, will fill Wang's role with a senior management team including its top finance personnel. During the third quarter of 2007 Baidu made a net profit of over $24 million, a 113.2 percent gain, and led all search engines in China, garnering 60.5 percent of the market during the quarter, followed by Google's 23.7 percent and Yahoo's 10.4 percent, according to Web traffic analysis firm Analysys International. Company to Move Forward Some industry analysts see the sudden death of Wang as a loss that Baidu will be able to overcome. "While employees' sentiment is likely to be negative in the near-term, we believe the business impact is not significant," said JP Morgan analyst Dick Wei in a recent MarketWatch article. Wei predicted that vice president of business operations Haoyu Shen would most likely assume the lead oversight role of Baidu's financial operations. "We remain positive on Baidu, the dominant market leader in China's online search market, which is still in an early high growth stage," Wei said. Before joining Baidu, Wang had been a partner at consulting and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Baidu takes its name from an 800 year old Song Dynasty poem about a man searching for love.
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10:52 pm on Dec. 31, 2007 (utc 0)