The benefits of female leaders in economic organizations increasingly are being reported. A large body of empirical studies focuses on the differences between female and male leaders regarding their personality characteristics, social skills and leadership styles. The existing literature pays insufficient attention to the institutional, cultural and organizational contexts that predetermine the mechanisms of shaping the leadership-performance linkage. By analyzing a national sample of Chinese private companies, we offer evidence for female CEOs’ heightened innovativeness compared to male CEOs. We suggest that organizational bias in selecting leadership and discrimination practices compel female CEOs to develop and utilize innovative capacities. A firm’s institutional environment moderates the positive role of female CEOs on firm innovativeness. The positive effects of female CEOs in promoting firm innovativeness are more potent in regions with lower GDP levels and less government support, where discriminations against women are more pervasive and deep-seated.