CEO Demographics, Board Gender Diversity and Financial Statements Fraud among Listed Firms in East Africa Community

The fraudulent activities have resulted in significant financial losses for the companies, amounting to millions or billions of globally. Furthermore, financial statements fraud significantly undermines the credibility of financial reports and assertions. Fraud in financial statement entails significant manipulation of financial statements with the intention of deceiving users. Despite the contributions of prior studies that sought to determine the CEO demographics and financial statements fraud relationship, the findings are incongruent.  Additionally, the study determined whether board gender diversity moderates the relationship between. A sample of 62 listed firms in East Africa partner states. Panel data for the period 2012 -2023 was used. Data was handpicked from financial reports and the study employed the F-score model to measure financial statements fraud. While the hypotheses were tested using probit regression. The findings revealed that CEO age and financial expertise had a negative effect on FSF. While, CEO tenure and gender had a positive effect on FSF age. Finally, the findings revealed that board gender diversity moderated the relationship between CEO age, CEO gender, CEO financial expertise, CEO tenure and FSF. The findings of this study may inform corporate governance setters in developing codes that mitigates the likelihood of firms engaging in fraudulent financial reporting practices. This study was limited to listed firms in EAC, future studies may consider other regions. Keywords: CEO Demographics, East Africa, Financial Statements Fraud, Board Gender Diversity