Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies cooling on a wire rack in a warmly lit bakery kitchen.

Debbi Fields: A Biography of the Mrs. Fields Founder

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In 1993, Debbi Fields lost control of the cookie company that carried her name. A restructuring transferred approximately 80% of the business to lenders, and a new chief executive replaced her. She remained board chair, but her responsibilities were shifting away from daily leadership.

Founding Mrs. Fields and continuing to run it became different parts of her story. As her company role changed, books, television, and public speaking extended her work beyond the stores.

A Quick Look at the Life of Debbi Fields

Biography Summary

Debbi Fields is an American entrepreneur and author who founded Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto, California, in 1977. Her business grew into an interstate and international cookie chain. Alongside her work with the brand, she published an autobiography and cookbooks, appeared on television, and became a public speaker.

Profile

Name: Debbi Fields; born Debra Jane Sivyer; also known as Debbi Fields Rose

Born: September 18, 1956

Birthplace: Oakland, California

Best Known For: Founding Mrs. Fields Cookies

Major Work: Retail baking, books, television, and public speaking

Major Honor: Toastmasters International’s Golden Gavel, 2003

An Oakland Childhood and an Interest in Baking

Born in Oakland in 1956, Fields was the youngest of five daughters. Her father worked as a welder for the Navy. Before baking became her business, it was something she pursued at home.

She later recalled working as a teenager and using her earnings to buy better baking ingredients. She also worked as a ball girl for the Oakland Athletics, bringing cookies to umpires.

According to her own account, Fields spent two years in junior college before her first marriage. In 1976 she married financial consultant Randall Fields, known as Randy. They would later run the cookie company together.

Taking Her Cookies Beyond the Home Kitchen

Fields later connected her decision to seek an identity beyond homemaking to an uncomfortable dinner with one of Randy’s clients. She recalled that the client insulted her while correcting her choice of a word with a dictionary. In her telling, the incident helped turn her attention toward making a business from the activity she loved.

Fields recalled approaching banks, receiving rejections, and eventually obtaining a loan. In an archived television interview, she also credited Randy’s belief in her and his financial contribution to making the first store possible.

In 1977, at age 20, she opened Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto. The shop turned her home baking into a retail business centered on warm, soft cookies.

Opening day, as Fields later described it, did not begin with customers coming through the door. Her husband had challenged her to make $50 in sales. Rather than continue waiting, she took samples into the street and offered people a taste. She recalled finishing the day with $75 in sales.

A Personal Standard Across a Growing Chain

Expansion changed the scale of the task. By October 1987, Mrs. Fields was operating across state lines and internationally. The company was projecting nearly 500 stores by the end of that year, while still relying on company-owned locations rather than franchising.

Keeping cookies fresh, warm, and consistent across dispersed stores brought a different management challenge from running one bakery. Inc. reported her recurring standard: “Good enough never is.”

Debbi’s product vision was one part of the growing operation. Randy developed the computer-based organizational approach that extended central management across the store network. Their shared leadership paired her product standard with his management systems.

The founder was also becoming an author. In 1987, Simon and Schuster published One Smart Cookie, the autobiography credited to Fields and Alan Furst. The book brought her account of building the business to readers.

The Restructuring That Changed Her Role

The chain’s expansion did not produce an uninterrupted run of financial success. The company recorded a $19 million loss in 1988 and closed stores. In the early 1990s, Mrs. Fields began franchising, changing the operating model that had characterized its earlier growth.

The decisive shift in ownership came in 1993, when lenders received approximately 80% of the company through a debt restructuring. Fields relinquished control but remained involved in the business.

In April 1993, Thomas Fey was announced as the new chief executive. Fields continued as board chair, with more of her attention directed toward marketing, business development, and products.

Capricorn acquired Mrs. Fields in 1996, in a separate transaction from the creditor restructuring. Fields later said her official company tenure ended in 2000 and that she subsequently served as a spokesperson.

Bringing Her Baking to Books and Television

During the 1990s, Fields’s work also reached audiences beyond the stores. She contributed to the TV Food Network’s The Dessert Show before appearing in her own public-television series, Debbi Fields’ Great American Desserts, in 1996.

A companion cookbook of the same title accompanied the series. Fields said producers had approached her about making the program. Through the series and cookbook, baking became part of her public work beyond the retail chain.

Public speaking became another part of that career. Toastmasters International honored her with its Golden Gavel in 2003, recognizing communication and leadership. In 2013, Oklahoma State University announced her as a speaker for its Women Entrepreneurs Inspire conference.

Life After Daily Leadership

Fields’s family life changed alongside her professional roles. Her marriage to Randy ended in divorce. In 1997, she married hospitality executive Michael Rose in San Francisco. Rose died in April 2017.

Leaving daily leadership remained a subject she discussed in personal terms. Reflecting in 2014 on her time outside the company’s operations, Fields said, “I miss the people; I miss the customers.” She also described missing the leadership role.

Family baking remained part of her later life. Fields has five daughters, and in a May 2026 interview she and daughter Ashley discussed baking, family influence, and Ashley’s launch of Fields Good, her own cookie venture.

The Founder and the Continuing Brand

As of November 4, 2026, Mrs. Fields continued to advertise cookie gifts online, franchised bakeries, retail partners, and licensed products. The business name had continued beyond the founder’s period of control.

Fields’s own account gives that distinction a personal dimension. The cookies still carried her name, while the employees, customers, and daily leadership were what she said she missed. Books, television, and family baking continued to connect her with the work that had begun in her home kitchen.

Timeline

These milestones trace Debbi Fields’s move into retail baking and the changes in her company and public career.

Timeline.

1956

Debra Jane Sivyer, later known as Debbi Fields, is born in Oakland, California.

1977

Fields opens Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto, California.

1987

One Smart Cookie, credited to Fields and Alan Furst, is published.

Early 1990s

Mrs. Fields begins franchising.

1993

A creditor restructuring transfers company control to lenders. Thomas Fey replaces Fields as CEO; she remains board chair.

1996

Capricorn acquires Mrs. Fields. Separately, Fields’s Great American Desserts television series and companion cookbook appear.

2000

Fields’s official company tenure ends, according to her later account.

2003

Toastmasters International honors Fields with its Golden Gavel.

2026

Fields and daughter Ashley discuss family baking and Ashley’s cookie venture in a joint interview.

FAQs

Question: Was Mrs. Fields a real person?

Answer: Yes. Debbi Fields founded the Palo Alto cookie shop in 1977 that became the Mrs. Fields brand. The name refers to its real founder.

Question: When did Debbi Fields stop running Mrs. Fields?

Answer: Thomas Fey replaced Debbi Fields as CEO in 1993, while she remained board chair. Fields said in 2014 that her official company tenure ended in 2000 and that she subsequently served as a spokesperson. Those were separate stages in her departure from company leadership.

Question: Was the $250 Mrs. Fields cookie-recipe story true?

Answer: No. Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand identified the expensive-recipe story as an urban legend. He reported that Fields posted notices denying that the company’s recipe had been sold. The circulating story was not a genuine account of buying her secret recipe.

Interviews

Looking Back at the First Cookie Shop

In this 2012 interview, Fields recalls turning home baking into a business, seeking financing, and offering samples on opening day. Read it for her firsthand account of the startup experiences she later described.

Read the interview

What She Missed About Running the Company

Fields’s 2014 reflection describes the transition away from daily leadership. She discusses missing employees and customers and explains how her association with the company continued after her official tenure ended.

Read the interview

An Archived Television Interview

This KGO archive resource preserves interview material about how the cookie business began. Fields credits Randy’s belief in her and his financial help with making the first store possible.

View the archived interview

Sources