The ‘CEO’ Effect on the Performance of Brazilian Companies: An Empirical Study Using Measurable Characteristics FERNANDO RIBEIRO SERRA,GUILHERME TRÊS and MANUEL PORTUGAL FERREIRA 1 Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração, UNINOVE – Universidade Nove de Julho, São Paulo, Brazil The experience and competence of CEOs may have a positive influence on the performance of firms. Using secondary data on the performance of 73 Brazilian listed companies and primary data collected through a survey of the social and demographic characteristics of CEOs we tested a set of hypotheses concerning the influence of CEOs on the performance of the firms they headed between 1997 and 2012. Specifically, we examined the relationships between CEOs’ experience and competence regarding common accounting indicators. The results indicate that CEOs with diverse experience would not do better in dynamic environments, and that specific experience has a negative effect on performance. Furthermore, CEOs with formal education do not show better short-term performance, and tenure has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the firm’ s performance. This article helps to provide a better understanding of the behavior of Brazilian CEOs by examining their characteristics. Keywords: top management team; chief executive officer; performance; strategy Introduction The CEOs and other top executives of Brazilian companies are idolized for their performance and envied for their income. In Brazil, there is a widespread belief that CEOs are a key factor when it comes to organizational performance. CEOs such as the former president of Vale, Roger Agnelli, and another eight Brazilian executives are considered responsible for the excellent performance of their companies (Hansen et al., 2013). Nevertheless, in Brazil we know little regarding this fundamental organizational resource (Hoskisson et al., 1999; Serra and Ferreira, 2010). Internationally, research on the impact of CEOs and the top management team (TMT) has grown and featured in a number of business studies, such as the work of Hambrick and Mason (1984), concerning the role of the TMT in the formulation and implementation of fundamental strategies for companies to succeed. The degree of performance attributed to the CEO influence is called the ‘CEO effect’ (Quigley and Hambrick, 2015). The role of the CEO is sometimes oversized and dominant in the company. A CEO, therefore, cannot be considered only a member of the top management team (TMT). The characteristics of the CEO (and related teams such as TMTs and boards) may influence companies’ performance (Hambrick and Mason, 1984). Since the work of Hambrick and Mason (1984), a growing amount of studies have used different CEO characteristics in an attempt to explain different possibilities of effects (Wiersema and Bantel, 1992; Hambrick et al., 1996; Barker and Mueller, 2002; Hsu and Huang, 2011). Associate CEOs (and related teams, as TMTs, and boards) to firm performance is widely studied (Bergh et al., 2016), however the works show inconsistent results. We associate it to the complexity and difference in contexts, but recognizing that the ‘CEO matters’ in different extent and situations (Crossland and Hambrick, 2007). Olie et al. (2012) suggested the need to observe the context, noting that it is of vital importance to understand the effect that leaders have on their respective environments. In other words, the actions of a CEO can vary depending on the national context in which a company operates (Elbanna, 2012). In different countries the CEO characteristics may have different influences in companies’ performance (Crossland and Hambrick, 2007). It is also important to consider to what extent it is Correspondence: Fernando Ribeiro Serra, UNINOVE – Universidade Nove de Julho, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração, Av. Francisco Matarazzo, 612, Prédio C – 2°, 05001-100 São Paulo, Brazil. E-mail: fernandoars@uninove.br European Management Review, (2016) DOI: 10.1111/emre.12079 © 2016 European Academy of Management