Shanghai Volkswagen, the joint venture between China’s SAIC and Volkswagen, lost its General Manager and three other people in a road accident in Jiuquan, southwestern China’s Gansu province, AFP reports.
SVW’s General Manager Liu Jian lost his life along with the driver of the car, Public Relations Director Zeng Jialin, and an unnamed after-sales manager. All had attended the signing conference of a new SVW factory in Jiangsu,
The people were on their way to a dealer meeting in Jiuquan when their Volkswagen Tiguan collided head-on with a heavy dump truck from a construction site.
Shanghai VW has dispatched an emergency team to Jiuquan for investigation.
Liu Jian, age 46, entered Shanghai VW in 1986 after he graduated from Shanghai Tongji University. He became general manager of the joint venture in October 2007.
I’m a little surprised by this. My understanding is that most corporations try not to have multiple senior or critical executives travelling in the same conveyance for this reason.
Does VW have such a policy? And to whom does it extend?
Once I found myself on a flight with:
– our President & CEO, and 2 of his 3 board members,
– of 5 CBU managers, those of the 2 responsible for the most profitable units (one being tied for first in revenue, and the other being 3rd);
– One senior finance person.
I mentioned to the CEO that this might be bad policy… I might have been talking to him about the mathematical details behind fractal geometry or the 5th dimension … it just didn’t compute with him … his two responses:
1. Plane better not crash,
2. If it does crash, some other people will get opportunity to move up…
Ostensibly, this gang likes to fly together (left the office so late, they nearly missed the plane, just running onto plane as door was closing) so they can discuss “important stuff”, in reality, they discuss a bit, but then they eat, drink, watch the movie, and fall asleep in their business class seat…
My company (in the DJIA) has a policy for flying. Only half of any corporate or business group leadership team can be on any one aircraft, including our corporate jets. No limits on cars that I’m aware of though…
1) psarhjinian, they are not senior enough. Try VW CEO + president + chairman + CFO …
2) Accident happens. Safety, contrary to what VW claimed, didn’t happen this time.
3) They probably didn’t use seat belts.
Thats pretty sad, it takes many yrs to train someone to move up.
In Middle Kingdom folks drink pretty heavy & hard ( fuel grade 100 proof ) in all social functions. Hope the driver was not in the party. But is too late to figure out now.
Considering the numerous China car wreck videos supplied to us by Bertel illustrating the high percentage of poor drivers in China (underlined by Bertel’s own refusal to drive in China), statistically, it was bound to happen to someone “important.”
I wonder if the car’s driver had the most experience.
Reports are they were travelling at 220kmh, so 100kmh above China’s max speed limit.