The author uses panel data from the World Bank enterprise survey for the Egyptian manufacturing sector in order to analyse the nexus between top managers’ human capital and productivity of firms. Pooled as well as firm fixed effects linear regressions indicate that firms are indeed on average more productive if the top manager has some kind of university degree, more experience in management activities and foreign experience in management jobs. Therefore, the overall results emphasize the importance of top managers and more generally of human capital in the determination of firm productivity.