This research will contribute to the literature of managerial ability and analyst following as well as narrative disclosure in the following ways. This study is the first to investigate the association between managerial ability and external information intermediaries such as financial analysts to the best of our knowledge. Most of the earlier studies on managerial ability focus on firms’ internal information environment such as operating and financial decisions, and limited studies examine the relation between managerial ability with external perception of the information environment and narrative disclosures. We extend this literature by examining how managerial ability impacts the firm's external information environment, affecting informational intermediaries' work processes, such as financial analysts. We find that managers' higher ability leads to better performance by financial analysts regarding their forecast error, dispersion, and willingness to provide coverage on the firm. We also step further by employing more advanced and novel measures to assess managerial ability's impact on market intermediaries’ external work and perception. Able managers impact reporting informativeness, response time, and the uncertainty of the forecasts from financial analysts. Further, we examine informational channels or mediators (i.e., analyst following and readability of narrative disclosure), highlighting how managerial ability can be linked the better performance by financial analysts. We intend to show how variables like disclosure readability and analyst following mediate between managerial ability and analyst forecast properties (i.e., error and Dispersion). In the last part of the research, we answer how analysts' better performance can be a channel to help able managers increase their firms' value (i.e., analyst’s forecast error acts as the channel from the managerial ability to firm’s performance).