Shawn Wang, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese Internet giant Baidu, died last week after an accident on December 27 in China.

Wang joined Baidu in 2004 and was a key figure in the company's successful listing on the Nasdaq. He was on vacation in China when he died. No details have been released beyond the fact that his death occurred as a result of an accident.

Baidu's shares, according to The Street, "have enjoyed a stratospheric rise since their public debut at $27 and closed Friday's session down $10.33 at $398.87."

In a prepared statement published at the company website, Baidu's chairman and CEO Robin Li expressed shock at Wang's death and said, "We are all completely shocked and deeply saddened by this tragic news. 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."

With about a 61% market share, Baidu.com is easily China's most prominent search engine, according to research firm Analysis International. Google ranks second with China's Internet users, with just under 24% of the search engine market in China. In the third quarter of 2007, Baidu recorded a net profit of $24.2 million.

Alice Turner at Efluxmedia describes Baidu as more than just a search engine. "It also has an online collaboratively-built encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia (Baidu Baike), and a searchable keyword-based discussion forum. Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files," she reported.

Wang's duties as CFO are being assumed by the company's senior managers for the moment.

Will Wang's untimely departure hurt Baidu? Rick Aristotle Munarriz at Motley Fool doesn't think so. "I don't see any fiscal ramifications here," Munarriz said. "Baidu isn't going to earn any less next year under a new CFO. Baidu's buoyant share price and reputation as China's top Internet search engine will make it easy to land a sharp CFO."

Baidu shares fell about three percent after the report of Wang's death. according to the New York Times.