CEO Characteristics and Firm Performance: A Study of Saudi Arabia Listed Firms

This paper aims to investigate the impact of chief executive officer's (CEO) attributes on firms' performance. Specifically, it examines the influence of CEOs' education, professional experience, and tenure on Saudi firms' performance. We look at a sample of 120 listed firms on Tadawul stock exchange from 2014 to 2017. Data on financial and accounting variables are obtained from the annual reports of the selected companies. We follow the existing empirical literature and use a panel model and formulate three different equations using the GMM estimator. Findings prove that CEO educational background does matter. In particular, companies employing CEOs with business administration, economics, finance, or accounting degree will perform outstandingly better. Similarly, stock performance gets improved when the CEO has a postgraduate qualification, i.e., when the CEO holds an MBA, a master, or a PhD degree. Besides, results reveal that executives who have an experience in a related field will positively affect the fires performance. Finally, evidence shows that high CEOs tenure improves corporate performance. Overall, these findings demonstrate that executives' attributes are key factors that would explain differences in Saudi firms' performance. These results would help shareholders to make the right decision in selecting CEOs to manage the company.