(HorizonPost.com) – The CEO of an Illinois-based tech company plunged to his death during the company’s 25th anniversary party in India, the New York Post reported.
Sanjay Shah, the CEO of Vistex, along with the company’s president Vishwanath Raju Datla, was set to make a grand entrance on stage as part of Vistex Asia-Pacific’s silver jubilee celebration at the Ramoji Film City. The two executives were supposed to be lowered to the stage in an iron cage when something went wrong with the rigging.
Video footage of the scene, posted in the Times of India, showed the cage hovering above the stage near the rafters. Fireworks exploded and the announcer told the crowd to “put their hands together” for Shah and Datla.
The cage was about 15 feet from the stage floor when one of the wires rigged to it snapped. The cage dropped to one side and the two executives fell to the ground, with one of the men landing head-first on the stage.
Sanjay Shah was killed and Vishwanath Raju Datla was severely injured and in critical condition.
While the cause of the accident was blamed on the snapped wire, officials are investigating the rigging system used to lower the cage to the floor.
The two Illinois executives were in India to celebrate the anniversary with employees from the Asia-Pacific office of Vistex, which Shah founded in 1999.
The advisory service company has over 20 offices worldwide and a client list that includes big-name corporations like Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Yamaha.
Shah was born in Mumbai, India, and emigrated to the United States in the late 1980s to attend business school at Lehigh University. According to the university, Shah graduated in 1989 with an MBA at the age of 21.
A noted philanthropist, Shah established the Vistex Foundation which offers grants to nonprofit groups that promote education, health, and basic needs. In 2017, Shah donated $5 million to Lehigh University to establish the Vistex Institute for Executive Education. He also opened the Vistex Hospital in 2020 in Bihar, India.
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