We investigate the relation between observable managerial characteristics (i.e., gender, age, tenure, professional qualifications, and advanced education), and performance in European equity diversified mutual funds. We find that differences in the risk-adjusted alphas are statistically significant only in the cases of subgroups formed on the basis of age, tenure, and professional qualifications (i.e., CFA). We also find that gender, and advanced education (i.e., MBA) are not significantly related to fund performance. We report, however, a significant positive relation with age, a significant negative relation with tenure, and a significant positive relation with turnover. Differences in risk-taking, measured by fund beta, are not significantly related with most managerial characteristics except for age and tenure, with the former negatively and the latter positively related to risk taking.
