DEBBI FIELDS

1956–

Debbi Fields went from handing out her home-baked cookies during baseball games to becoming the founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies, one of the largest international retailers of freshly baked cookies in the US. The author of a number of books, Fields is known for her philanthropy and as a motivational speaker who believes that “good enough never is.”

Born Debra Jane Sivyer in Oakland, California, in September 1956, Debbi Fields became one of the first ball girls for the Oakland Athletics baseball team as a young teenager. She had a passion for baking, and the “cookie kid,” as she was known, would hand out her home-baked cookies at the game. She used the $5 an hour she earned to buy more baking ingredients.

In 1976, Debbi married financial consultant Randall Fields. The following year, dissatisfied with being a “tagalong” housewife and wanting to make money from doing something she loved, Fields set up her first store. Armed with a business loan from the Bank of America, she opened Mrs. Fields’ Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto, California, selling cookies straight from the oven. A second store, named Mrs. Fields’ Cookies, followed in 1979 and was a huge success, with long lines of customers stretching out the door. By 1983, her company had expanded to 70 stores across the US and was recording sales of $30 million.

In 1989, Fields introduced a computer system to keep track of production schedules and operations—the first company in the food retailing industry to do so. Eventually, the business grew to several hundred outlets in the US and worldwide. Fields sold Mrs. Fields’ Cookies for $100 million in the early 1990s but retained her position as spokesperson for a number of years afterward.