09/30/2023
"Good enough never is" - Debbi Fields
Debbi Fields (September 18, 1956 - current) is an American entrepreneur, best-selling author, and founder of the Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookie franchise.
At the age of 20, Fields was a young housewife with no business experience. She had a dream, a recipe and a passion for sharing her chocolate chip cookies with others. Fields managed to do what most people considered impossible: she convinced a bank to finance an unproven business concept that seemed to have little likelihood of success.
Born Debra Jane Sivyer in Oakland, Calif., Debbi is the youngest of five daughters born to a Navy welder and his wife. Raised in middle-class surroundings, her parents taught her to work for what she wanted.
Fields developed a talent and interest in baking as a child, particularly chocolate chip cookies. Starting with the classic 1930s Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle's Chocolate Chips bag, Debbi began experimenting with the cookie batter. By the time she was 18, Fields was known locally for her delicious cookies, which were richer and doughier than the classic recipe.
At age 19, she married 29-year old Stanford University graduate Randall Fields, a financial consultant. At age 21, with a talent and passion for baking, coupled with a strong desire to own her own business, Fields opened her first chocolate chip cookie store in Palo Alto, CA in 1977. Called Mrs. Fields’ Chocolate Chippery, her freshly baked oversized cookies were sold soft and warm right out of the oven, something other baked goods stores were not doing at the time.
As her offerings expanded beyond chocolate chip cookies to include a variety of cookies, brownies, and muffins, the business name changed in 1980 to Mrs. Fields’ Cookies with Debbi assuming the role of president and CEO. Her baked goods, made with only the finest ingredients, quickly became the snacks of choice for young, urban professionals.
Her second store, in San Francisco, Calif., had customer lines so long they caused problems for neighboring businesses. Fields continued to expand her locations in California before broadening to other US states. Between 1985 and 1988, the privately held company opened 225 new stores. By the late 1980s the chain had grown to include 425 cookie stores across the United States and abroad, reporting annual retail sales of over $87 million.
While growing her Mrs. Fields business, Debbi was also giving birth to and raising five daughters with her husband Randy, juggling a busy home life while meeting the increasing demands of her expanding business. In 1987, Fields wrote her autobiography One Smart Cookie: How a Housewife’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Turned into a Multimillion-dollar Business. Her memoir details how, through perseverance, her passion for baking cookies in her home kitchen grew into a $450 million company, and one of the world’s most recognizable brands in baked goods.
Fields orchestrated franchise agreements in Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, Canada, and the Middle East, with the long-term goal of franchising overseas operations across all markets. She partnered with Marriot Corporation, allowing Marriot to build stores and bake and sell cookies in airports, hotels, and highway travel plazas. In 1990-1992, as Debbi Fields began franchising her business, she sold Mrs. Fields for $100 million to an investment firm that continued to franchise the company into an international phenomenon.
From 1993-1995, Debbi had a popular baking series called Desserts with Debbi Fields that aired on the Food TV Network, a newly launched television channel devoted entirely to baking, cooking, and food programs. In 1996, Debbi Fields starred in her own baking series on PBS Television called "Debbi Fields' Great American Desserts" which coincided with her latest cookbook of the same name.
Debbi and Randy divorced in 1996, and on November 29, 1997, Debbi married Michael David Rose.
In 2000, Debbi’s official time at the Mrs. Fields Company ended, but for several years she remained the company’s spokesperson and continued to promote the company that she founded as a young entrepreneur.
In the fall of 2011 she achieved a personal goal of summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro. In July 2013, Debbi joined the judging panel of Supermarket Superstar, a reality television series in which three home chefs pitch their recipes to food-industry titans for a chance to have their products launched nationally in a major grocery chain.
Debbi’s husband Michael D. Rose, the former CEO/Chairman of Holiday Corp and Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc., died of cancer in April 2017.
Fields is a best-selling author of several cookbooks. The first, Mrs. Fields' Cookie Book: 100 Recipes from the Kitchen of Mrs. Fields, has sold millions of copies and was the first cookbook to top The New York Times Best Seller list.
Today, Debbi continues to devote her time to philanthropy, motivational speaking, and of course, baking. As for the company Debbi Fields founded, today Mrs. Fields Cookies, Inc. is owned by Famous Brands International, which also owns TCBY (The Country’s Best Yogurt). There are currently over 300 Mrs. Fields locations around the world.
