This study aims to understand the relationship between female corporate leadership and firm performance based on exploration and exploitation strategies using a global enterprise data set. Previous studies report conflicting evidence of female corporate leadership on firm performance. This study applies an exploration–exploitation framework and suggests that the relative advantage of female corporate leadership relies upon certain aspects of the firm’s growth strategy. The empirical evidence confirms that the relative advantage of female corporate leadership resides more in the exploitation than the exploration aspect of a firm’s growth strategy compared to male corporate leadership. The study thus offers important implications for broader business practices when considering the alignment between the choice of corporate leadership and firm growth strategy.