Entrepreneur.com Interview with Alex Fielding
In an interview with the online magazine entrepreuneur.com, Fielding talked about how it was for him growing up; His parents had the same routine every morning through his childhood. They would wake at 5 a.m. and go to their local mosque, where his dad waited in the car while his mom went inside to pray. Then they went to the Roman Catholic church, where his dad went inside to pray and his mom went home to care for him and his siblings.
He explained that he thought this was fairly normal as a kid, but as an adult, he realized that it was special; two people from different religions who loved each other so much they never challenged each other’s beliefs.
His father was British and fought in World War II, during which he was stationed in East Africa and later ended up as CEO of Nairobi Power Company, where he met his mother in 1961 after she applied to be his secretary. She was a 22-year-old Muslim. Their marriage upset his father’s family -- and in the age of apartheid, their lives in Africa were challenging and dangerous. Therefore, they moved to America in 1965, where he was born.
Alex Fielding grew up with quotes and photos of Nelson Mandela around his house.
At the dinner table, his parents led family conversations about world-historical issues and problems, and they talked about what they would have done to correct them.
His parents always said, “It’s not about what the norm is, it’s about what the right thing to do is.”
His dad passed away in 1997. One day, while looking through his father’s old files, Alex came across a deed from the time when his parents left Africa. They’d sold their property, but according to the document, they left a portion to the staff. Alex asked his mother, who is still alive, about that decision and her reply was, “It was just the right thing to do.” Alex framed the deed and hung it in his office.
Alex was in stealth mode at the time of the interview, as he was in the process of building his new startup business, Ripcord, where they developed a way to digitize huge amounts of paper documents and turn them into searchable and usable data.
As they’ve grown, Fielding hired a staff of 30, and it was that deed on the wall that helped to remind him of the importance of doing right by people. They have consciously built a team that’s full of diverse people who have diverse personalities.
