Beyond the Balance Sheet: Why Molly Schaar Is the CFO to Watch in 2025
Molly Schaar, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at City Wide Facility Solutions, lives by the principle that “Whether you’re running a marathon or leading a company, the finish line is built on discipline, resilience, and an unwavering belief that you can go farther than you ever imagined.” This ethos isn’t just professional but intensely personal. Molly is committed to nurturing her mind, body, and spirit, believing these are essential for effective leadership and a fulfilling life. An athlete since childhood, she continually applies discipline and resilience learned from pursuits like completing multiple marathons to both her personal goals and her leadership approach.
That same quest for preeminence drives her priorities for the finance function, which include enabling strategic growth through powerful analytics and a strong financing playbook, equipping franchisees with financial tools and education, and building a world-class finance team grounded in continuous learning and collaboration.
But Molly’s leadership extends well beyond the traditional scope of finance. At City Wide, she’s a core architect of the company’s ownership strategy, investor engagement, and long-term value creation. As a trusted executive voice in City Wide’s evolving capital structure, she helps navigate the balance between institutional investment, founder legacy, and franchisee success — scaling the business with both ambition and integrity. At the heart of her strategy is team empowerment. Molly has cultivated a finance group that consistently delivers outstanding results to franchisees. Their guiding principle is the ‘City Wide Way,’ an indelible commitment to fulfilling promises, providing exceptional service, and serving as genuine strategic partners to their valued clients.
Molly’s vision doesn’t stop at team building. She’s also been intentional about leveraging automation and advanced financial tools to unlock scalability. By taking routine tasks off their plates, she enables her team to engage in more impactful work. This involves in-depth analyses of financial data, identifying previously unexplored growth opportunities for franchisees, and devising innovative strategies to help them win in their local markets.
Ultimately, their approach transcends mere numbers. It’s about fostering an environment where her team can flourish. Combining astute financial management with an indefatigable dedication to service, Molly and her City Wide team are laying the foundation for sustainable, widespread growth, solidifying the company’s status as the go-to provider for facility solutions.
Evolving Leadership Journey
In the early stages of her career, Molly leaned on her technical acumen and drive to deliver. However, as her perspective matured, she realized that authentic leadership lies in nurturing talent, earning trust, and cultivating a culture where every voice carries weight. She truly believes, “Leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about empowering others to discover their own and giving them the confidence to shine truly.”
She’s also a natural talent-spotter and mentor. Throughout her career, Molly has consistently elevated high-potential individuals — often turning quiet contributors into confident catalysts. Many of her former team members have stepped into senior leadership roles, a legacy she takes deep pride in and continues to build upon at City Wide.
At City Wide, she champions a “bias for action”—mistakes are acceptable as long as they fuel learning and momentum. Rather than pursuing perfection, she values precision and transparency. Molly celebrates every milestone, no matter the size. A futurist by instinct, she’s skilled at identifying far-reaching targets well before they come into view. Beyond strategy, Molly’s leadership is strengthened by a contagious sense of optimism. It’s this outlook that helps her confront roadblocks and uplift her team. This philosophy, steeped in lessons from books like The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon, drives her mission to lead with heart, clarity, and conviction, no matter the headwinds.
While she credits early opportunities for part of her journey, Molly emphasizes that her leadership style has evolved from being a “doer” to a “multiplier” who broadens the view of those around her of what’s possible beyond traditional finance. It guides them toward becoming strategic accelerants for the company’s continued ascent.
The Art of Presence, not Balance
When questioned about balancing her CFO and leadership duties with her personal life, Molly admits she hasn’t perfected it. Her rock is her family, which includes her husband, Ryan, and daughters Sammie (10) and Sofie (7). They’re the ‘single most important thing’ in her life, prompting Molly to dedicate time to be present deliberately. Watching her daughters grow into strong, determined young women is her greatest source of pride and purpose. She strives every day to model for them what it means to lead with virtue, courage, and joy, backing her belief that setting boundaries is both possible and essential for holistic well-being.
Professionally, this seasoned executive prioritizes transparency with her team. For instance, she encourages flexible schedules and promotes a results-oriented culture over one that values face time. Molly leads by example, visibly stepping away for important family moments. Ultimately, she’s her best self, at work or home, when fully present in each space.
The Courageous Detour That Forged a CFO
A pivotal three-year detour from finance, running a freight logistics business, fundamentally shaped Molly’s path to becoming a CFO. For nearly two decades prior, her focus remained on accounting, technical reporting, and financial strategy. Leading an operational business, however, propelled her beyond her comfort zone, demanding an entirely new way of thinking.
Suddenly, Molly oversaw sales, operational efficiency, customer relations, and team dynamics. In these areas, finance plays a part, but it isn’t the sole driver of success.
Returning to finance, Molly brought a far more holistic and strategic perspective. She stopped seeing finance as mere number-tracking; instead, she saw it as narrating the business story and enabling future growth. This significant shift prepared her to confidently embrace the CFO role, understanding that solid financial leadership empowers the entire organization. It also sparked her obsession with questioning old ways of working — a trait that defines the culture she’s building today.
Cultivating a Culture of Courageous Ideas
Building a powerful culture of collaboration and innovation in her finance and accounting teams starts with psychological safety for Molly. It means carving out a sanctuary where ideas can be freely shared, unburdened by fear of criticism. She insists on regular, meaningful meetings to spark honest dialogue and foster trust across the team.
Molly passionately encourages everyone to disrupt the status quo and demand, “Is there a better way?” By embracing fresh perspectives and galvanizing her team to speak their minds, she consistently uncovers practices to fine-tune processes, adopt innovative tools, and bring even greater value to their franchisees and the organization as a whole.
She also advocates cross-functional immersion. Molly motivates her team to spend time alongside operations, sales, and franchise partners, gaining direct insight into business challenges. This method demolishes internal barriers, elevating finance to a proactive strategic partner, far beyond a mere support role.
Recognition lights up the path as well. Molly proudly shares how their peer recognition program spotlights team victories and strengthens their shared passion for excellence and groundbreaking ideas, continually driving the organization forward.
A Legacy of Empowerment and Vision
When Molly considers her legacy, her aspiration is beautifully humble: “to leave this world better than I found it.” This profound commitment clearly illustrates why she is now counted among “The 10 Most Visionary CFOs Driving Financial Excellence in 2025” within a respected industry spotlight; a distinction we wholeheartedly endorse.
She hopes to leave behind an imprint of upliftment, where finance is no longer confined but recast as a core driver of innovation. Molly envisions future financial leaders stepping far beyond the traditional roles of merely analyzing numbers. They should see themselves as structure-forgers, compelling storytellers, and true partners in defining a business’s destiny.
At City Wide, as CFO, Molly has tirelessly devised a finance function that assimilates transparency, inclusivity, and a thirst for knowledge. She’s particularly driven to create more avenues for women and underrepresented talents to ascend into leadership. She wants tomorrow’s leaders to feel recognized, genuinely supported, and motivated to seize their potential.
Her ultimate wish is to be remembered as a leader guided by integrity, empathy, and bravery. Someone who always prioritized her people, easing the path for the next generation to aspire to grander dreams and loftier goals.
Molly expresses with earnest resolve, “If I can inspire others to lead boldly, lift each other up, and leave their own lasting positive mark, then I will consider my mission fulfilled.”
The CFO as a Future Builder
In the coming five years, facility management CFOs will step into a vital role as integrators, bringing together finance, operations, technology, and the client experience. Molly feels that as AI, data analytics, and sustainability reshape the industry, CFOs must lead outside cost control. Their focus shifts to igniting value creation and driving strategic growth.
At City Wide, this transformation is already underway. They are pivoting towards a proactive, insight-driven finance model, replacing old reports with powerful predictive analytics and agile scenario planning. CFOs who wholeheartedly embrace this evolution will become the indispensable architects of tomorrow’s long-term strategy. For Molly, that future is clear: guide City Wide through its next chapter of growth and help lead the company from $1B to $2B by 2030 — powered by data, people, and a relentless focus on franchisee success.
Word of Advice for Generation Next
To aspiring finance professionals dreaming of executive roles in service-based industries, Molly shares wisdom that ignites their potential. She urges them: be endlessly curious, grasp the broader business context. She has observed that finance truly shines when it propels the business forward, never when it isolates itself. So, this industry luminary advises, “Develop deep business acumen and seek cross-functional experiences.” This will help them to become indispensable strategic partners.
From titans of industry to top athletes, everyone needs a guide to reach their summit. Molly encourages the future leaders to find mentors, cultivate strong networks, and consider lateral moves that broaden their horizons. Most critically, she stresses “stay authentic.” She firmly believes that one’s unique experiences and values are one’s most incredible superpowers. And success blossoms when they lean into these propensities, rather than trying to fit a traditional mold.
A Financial Renaissance (In Progress)
One of Molly’s most exciting current initiatives is a bold exploration of what she calls a financial renaissance at City Wide. Recognizing the transformative potential of modern technology, she is actively leading efforts to rethink and redesign the company’s approach to financial intelligence. Historically, the finance team has relied on traditional, backward-looking reporting — a model that can delay decision-making in a fast-moving business environment.
Molly is now spearheading the exploration of advanced analytics, AI integration, and predictive modeling, with the goal of shifting the function from passive record-keeping to proactive insight generation. While still in its early stages, this initiative reflects her belief that finance can and should fuel strategic foresight across the organization — not just report on what happened, but guide what’s next.
The journey is ongoing, but the ambition is clear: to empower every department — from operations to sales to franchise development — with real-time, actionable financial intelligence. Molly’s leadership is rooted in a willingness to take calculated risks, pilot new technologies, and continuously learn — all in service of building a smarter, more scalable, and more forward-looking business.
City Wide Data-Driven Impact
Building on this forward-looking strategy, City Wide has begun implementing foundational tools and practices to make the vision real—transforming finance from a cost center into a catalyst for growth. Under Molly’s leadership, the team is beginning to implement advanced financial tools and AI capabilities to streamline operations and enhance decision-making.
Leaders across the company are exploring AI-powered forecasting and scenario modeling to move beyond rigid budgets toward dynamic, predictive insights — tools that will help franchisees and leadership anticipate changes and identify new avenues for success. Several accounting processes have already been automated, enabling skilled team members to focus on more strategic work instead of repetitive reconciliation.
This emphasis on innovation extends to building a culture of ongoing learning and data fluency, where team members are encouraged to ask probing questions and turn data into compelling narratives. As these initiatives progress, they are helping strengthen City Wide’s core mission: delivering client excellence, propelling franchisee growth, and enabling smarter, long-range decisions across the entire system.
Values That Drive Excellence
For Molly, “True success is measured not just in results, but in the positive impact you leave on the people and the world around you.”
At the core of her leadership are integrity, transparency, and an insatiable growth mindset. She firmly believes that unwavering integrity builds unshakeable trust. Clarity is her creed, as Molly proponents share insights to promote deep alignment and collective ownership within the team. Her drive for growth means constant learning, pushing boundaries, and empowering others to reach their fullest potential. This personal ethos flawlessly reflects City Wide’s ambition to be the premier choice for commercial facility management. Molly proudly explains that what makes City Wide truly unique is going beyond service provision to personally represent each client, integrating as an extension of their team to ensure every need is met with the highest standard of care.
Channeling these principles, Molly intentionally cultivates an environment that empowers every team member and franchisee. To her, it’s about creating a profound, enduring impact on everyone they serve.
