Journal of Entrepreneurship Education Volume 24, Issue 2, 2021 1 1528-2651-24-2-709 Citation Information: Zaidi, N., Azouzi, M.A., Sadraoui, T. (2021). CEO Financial Education and Bank Performance. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 24(2). CEO FINANCIAL EDUCATION AND BANK PERFORMANCE Noura Zaidi, University of Monastir, Tunisia Mohamed Ali Azouzi, University of Monastir, Tunisia Tarek Sadraoui, University of Monastir, Tunisia ABSTRACT In this article I examine the impact of the educational background in general and the financial education particularly of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) on bank performance of the Tunisian resident banks. This area of research is important given that researchers in this area argue that CEO characteristics such as educational orientation, age and functional career influence the way business problems are perceived and the decision making process. The information gathered from the annual reports of these banks and using a research questionnaire shows that the educational path ways for most CEOs in the Tunisian bank system are financially educated. This paper finds that CEO educational attainment, both level and field, matters for bank performance. More specifically the regression analysis offer robust evidence that banks led by CEOs with higher education outperform their peers. The main result of this paper is that CEO financial education positively affects bank performance. Such CEOs improve performance when he is longer serving, financially educated and when he delegates more decision making authority. Our findings suggest that financial education delivers skills enabling CEOs to manage increasingly larger and complex banks and achieve higher performance outcomes. But our findings also partly support the view that engineering background also positively affects bank performance. Keywords: CEO, Educational Background, Bank Performance, Educational Level, Financial Education. INTRODUCTION Nowadays financial markets and products become increasingly complex. Everyone have to take financial decisions in his/her everyday life concerning saving, investment, money management and participating in the stock market. That is why being financially literate is now an important skill like reading, writing, and math that everyone needs to know in order to endure the complicated financial world. Given that financial education has long-term consequences, one must start at a very young age, before the first job. Financial education provides the knowledge and tools to manage financial risks. The concept of financial education has gained weight in the personal finance literature nowadays given the important role it plays in society. Several path-breaking articles were published in this area to show the importance of financial education (Lyons & Neelakantan, 2008; Wagner, 2015; Krische, 2019; Servon & Kaestner, 2008; Eugster, 2013; Lusardi & Scheresberg, 2013; Lusardi & Mitchell, 2011; van Rooij et al., 2011). Since, spending is part of the everyday life of everyone, hence the need for financial education. Individuals should be