Abstract This research examines the impact of the Chinese CEOs with foreign experience from developed nations on the firm's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, drawing on imprinting theory, stakeholder theory, and resource dependence theory. Using manually collected data of CEOs' foreign experience and corporate ESG data from the Bloomberg database for Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2020, we observe that CEOs with foreign imprinting tend to improve their corporate ESG performance in China. The positive relationship between CEO foreign experience and corporate ESG performance is more significant when the CEO is female, when the CEO is more educated, and when the firm is state‐owned. To better understand the underlying influence, our study indicates that the influence of CEOs' foreign experiences on corporate ESG performance is primarily manifested in the advancement of corporate social and environmental responsibility. Section 4.3 reveals that experiences obtained from developed economies have a more pronounced impact on promoting firms' ESG performance compared to experiences gained in underdeveloped countries. This empirical evidence underscores the significance of foreign experiences gained in developed economies in driving firms' ESG performance. Overall, our research makes a contribution to the study of CEOs' foreign exposure and corporate ESG performance.
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