Environment (E), society (S), and corporate governance (G) are the necessary paths for the sustainable development of the capital market, and are also important ways for the system to move towards high-quality development of enterprises. System-driven enterprises to build ESG strategies and improve enterprise ESG performance have important practical signifi cance for enterprises to achieve high-quality development. From the perspective of strategic decision-makers, this paper uses the data of China’s A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 and adopts the two-way fi xed effect model to explore the specifi c impact of overseas executives on corporate ESG. The research results show that: First, overseas returnee executives have a signifi cant positive driving effect on corporate ESG, which means that overseas returnee executives pay more attention to corporate ESG strategic performance, and the multi-dimensional test results show that overseas returnee executives have a signifi cant positive driving effect on corporate environmental responsibility performance, social responsibility performance and corporate governance. Second, considering the external boundary mechanism, institutional investors’ attention and media governance, as two types of external governance channels, both produce signifi cant positive moderating effects between overseas executives and corporate ESG. Third, the value effect test shows that overseas returnee executives have both economic and innovation value effects by strengthening ESG performance to help enterprises increase sales revenue and strengthen green technology innovation. Fourth, there is heterogeneity in property rights, industry and institutional environment in the performance of overseas returnee executives on enterprise ESG, which is manifested by the more obvious performance of overseas returnee executives on enterprise ESG in state-owned property rights, heavy pollution industries and higher marketization of institutional environment. The conclusions of this paper are helpful for China to build an ESG promotion system of “executive strategy-driven external media governance”, and provide experience reference for enterprises to drive high-quality development based on enterprise ESG system construction.