She started her company in 1978 with $1,500 borrowed from her mother and a fax machine borrowed from her brother-in-law. Forty years later, that company crossed $1 billion in revenue.
Janice Bryant Howroyd grew up in Tarboro, North Carolina, one of eleven children in a deeply faith-rooted family. She was the first in her family to earn a college degree, graduating from North Carolina A&T. In 1976, she moved to Los Angeles to visit her sister — and stayed, working at Billboard magazine before taking a job at a small recruiting firm. She learned the business from the inside.
Then she decided to build her own.
In 1978, with $1,500, a borrowed fax machine, and a tiny office in Beverly Hills, Janice founded ACT-1 Personnel Services. She was a Black woman starting a staffing company in an industry and era that offered her almost every reason to fail. She had no major investors. No corporate connections. No built-in network of business allies to call on.
What she had was an extraordinary ability to see people — not just as résumés but as human beings with potential, with stories, with specific gifts that didn't always translate neatly onto a job application. She treated every candidate as someone worth placing well, and every employer as someone she could build a real relationship with. That philosophy built a reputation before the internet made reputation-building easy.
ACT-1 grew steadily, then rapidly. Janice expanded into technology, government contracts, and specialized staffing. She built a diversified holding company — The ActOne Group — with multiple subsidiaries spanning workforce solutions, technology services, and HR consulting. Today it operates in 19 countries.
In 2018, Janice Bryant Howroyd became the first Black woman to own a company that surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue. She's spoken at the White House. She's mentored thousands. She still signs every employee handbook herself, and she still believes, as she did in 1978, that every person deserves to be treated with dignity in their working life.
The Lesson
Janice built a billion-dollar company on a principle that most business schools don't teach: that people are not commodities. In a staffing industry that could easily reduce humans to data points, she insisted on relationships — real, warm, accountable ones — with both the candidates she placed and the employers she served. Long-term success rarely comes from what you extract from people. It comes from what you build with them.
Are the relationships in your business transactional — or are they something you're genuinely building for the long run?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Janice Bryant Howroyd?
Janice Bryant Howroyd is the founder of ActOne Group and the first African American woman to build a billion-dollar company. She started in 1978 with $1,500 and a borrowed fax machine, building a staffing empire that now operates in 19 countries.
How did Janice Bryant Howroyd start ActOne Group?
With $1,500 in savings and a fax machine she borrowed from another business, Janice opened a small staffing firm in 1978. She had no venture capital, no family wealth, and no industry connections. She had work ethic and the understanding that businesses run on people.
What is the first Black woman-owned billion dollar company?
ActOne Group, founded by Janice Bryant Howroyd in 1978, became the first company owned by a Black woman to exceed $1 billion in annual revenue. It took decades of steady, relationship-based growth — not a flashy tech exit, but real business built one client at a time.
What business lessons come from Janice Bryant Howroyd's story?
Start with what you have, not what you wish you had. Janice didn't wait for perfect conditions — she started with $1,500 and a borrowed fax machine. Her story proves that patience, integrity, and treating people right can build something that outlasts every trend.
