Next month, the Los Angeles Angels will welcome a 25-year front office veteran to the president’s room.
On April 6, Molly Jolly will become the ninth president of the Angels, and by doing so, she’ll become the first woman in franchise history to hold that position.
But this isn’t her first time breaking the glass ceiling. When she was younger, she convinced her parents and her local Boy Scouts troop to allow her on a trip. By the time she was 11, she was an active Girl Scout who’d set local records for cookie sales and service projects.
“If boys can do it, I can do it too and I think I always had that in me,” Jolly said. “I don’t think that was my primary motivation, but I always had that mindset of why not me.”
Her go-getter attitude continued into high school, where she swam and cheered. She also earned a prestigious internship with then-Florida Congressman Connie Mack III, the grandson of baseball legend Connie Mack.
“Looking back at my memory, I’m like ‘wow, maybe this was a prelude to what was going to happen in my life,'” she said.
After undergrad, she received her MBA from UCLA and in 2000, former owners Disney hired Jolly as the director of finance for both the Anaheim Ducks and the Angels.
“Really understanding the complexity of the business of baseball, I was hooked,” she said.
In her second year, she witnessed the Angels’ first and only World Series win and was promoted to vice president of finance.
Her insight into the team’s finances was spot on. Even as the ownership changed in 2003, Jolly was kept on.
During this year’s Women’s History Month, owner Arte Moreno announced that Jolly would replace retiring President John Carpino, making her the only woman in all of Major League Baseball to oversee a team’s business and baseball departments. General manager Perry Minasian will make the final decisions about the roster.
“I look forward to seeing Jo Adell and Neto and Schanuel, it’s going to be exciting to watch them this year,” she said.
As she steps into this historic role, Jolly says it’s a full-circle moment for that little girl who proudly joined the Boy Scouts camping trip 50 years ago.
“I want to thank everyone,” she said. “I’m really flattered that the welcome has been so warm, and it just shows where women and women in sports are today.”
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