As corporate elites and core directors, outside CEO directors bring unique cognitive resources to the focal firm where they serve as directors. Drawing on upper echelon theory and applied psychology literature, this study analyzed the effect of outside CEO director on firm’s strategic change: outside CEO director contributes to firm’s strategic change by bringing more strategic knowledge stock and less intensive monitoring to focal firm’s CEO. This study also examined the boundary conditions of such relationship from a CEO-director communication perspective. This study suggests that language style similarity between CEO and outside CEO director, and CEO openness positively moderate the fore-mentioned relationship by facilitating easier communication and enabling CEO to make better use of the cognitive resources provided by outside CEO directors.