Janice Howroyd

Janice Bryant Howroyd was born in 1952 in North Carolina, the fourth of eleven children. After obtaining a degree in English (later a master’s and PhD), she moved to California and took a temporary job as a secretary. With no previous office experience, she transformed the office by putting filing systems and other systems into place to make the office run more efficiently. The knowledge she used was the way her parents organized her and her siblings by teamwork, mentoring and making something out of very little. She would use these early life lessons to build, sustain and innovate her employment company.

On the advice of her former boss, Janice started her own company, Act*1, in 1978. Her determination, personality and natural organizational abilities are what has made her company into a multibillion dollar global success. She is an advocate of ‘keeping the humanity in human resources’ shown by the importance she places on prospective employees being the center of all that she does. Janice was also able to innovate into new areas as the employment market changed and to create new companies to supply the needs of her clients. She is one of the leading women entrepreneurs in the world with a string of awards and two best selling books.