The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance on the financial performance of selected SOEs of Ethiopia. To achieve this objective, the data were collected from a sample of eight SOEs for the financial year covering 2010 to 2018. Variables such as board size, board educational qualification, firm size, board gender diversity, board frequency of meeting and size of audit committee were considered as predictors of the firm financial performance that was measured employing the return on asset (ROA). Secondary data were collected using documentary information from company annual financial statements and the data were analyzed using fixed effect regression analysis by using STATA 14.2. The regression result shows that board size is negatively related and has significant effect on ROA. The frequency of meeting and board educational level are related with ROA negatively and has insignificant effect. Firm size is negatively related and has significant effect on ROA. Firm age also positively and significantly related with ROA. Whereas Board gender diversity & audit committee size are positively but insignificant effect on ROA; Board educational qualification is insignificant and negatively related with ROA. The finding of the study indicates that small board size is related to better performance. The overall contribution of this research is to recommend PEHAA to nominate small board members with high skill & industry specific experience without considering the political intuition.