PHILADELPHIA — Seven people were killed in an Amtrak train derailment Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Two of the victims — an Associated Press employee and a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy — were identified Wednesday morning. Two more — a Wells Fargo executive and the CEO of an education startup — were identified later in the day. The others had not been publicly identified as of Wednesday night.
Abid Gilani, a senior vice president in the Hospitality Finance Group for Wells Fargo in New York City, had been with the company for just about a year, according to his LinkedIn page.
A company spokeswoman said Gilani is one of seven confirmed deaths in Tuesday night’s Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia.
“Our hearts go out to all those impacted by this tragedy,” a statement read.
Before joining Wells Fargo, Gilani had been with Marriott International for eight years.
The company said Gilani, originally from Canada, split his time between Washington and New York. He was a married father of two.
Rachel Jacobs, a leader in the increasingly technology-driven worker training and development industry, was commuting home to New York from her new job as CEO of the Philadelphia educational software startup ApprenNet.
Rachel Jacobs and family are seen in this undated photo from her Facebook page.FacebookThe 39-year-old mother of two previously worked at McGraw-Hill, leading the expansion of the company’s career-learning business into China, India and the Middle East, and Ascend Learning, another education-technology firm.
Jacobs is the daughter of Gilda Jacobs, a former Michigan state senator and current chief executive of the Michigan League for Public Policy.
The family said in a statement that Rachel Jacobs “was a wonderful mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend” who was devoted to family and social justice. They called her death “an unthinkable tragedy” and said they “cannot imagine life without her.”
Jacobs was a founder and board chair at Detroit Nation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting startups in her Michigan hometown.
Through the organization, she helped bring the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to New York for its first concert at Carnegie Hall in 17 years.
She attended Swarthmore College and Columbia Business School. She joined ApprenNet in March and had planned on moving to Philadelphia.
