Business
Profile: Janice Bryant Howroyd – first black woman to build a billion-dollar company
Janice Bryant Howroyd – first black woman to build a billion-dollar company.
Oprah Winfrey may be the first Black woman self-made billionaire, but Janice Bryant Howroyd, CEO of Act•1 Group, is the first Black woman to own a billion-dollar company.
In 2011 Act•1, the largest Black female-owned business in the United States, held the No. 3 spot on the Black Enterprise Industrial/Service list of America’s largest Black-owned companies, with US$1.4 billion in revenues for 2010.
Over the last 30 years Bryant Howroyd has steered her Torrence, Calif., based-company through turbulent economic climates to emerge as a leader in the US$120 billion staffing industry. The business titan and Black Enterprise 100s CEO will share her keys to success as a featured keynote speaker at the 2012 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference + Expo (BEEC2012) in Chicago (May 23-26).
In 1978, Bryant Howroyd started Act•1 Personnel Services as a single-office operation that evolved into the ACT•1 Group, an expansive global operation that today employs more than 1,300 people in 240 satellite offices in the U.S. and eight other countries, offering a range of services from employee background checks to executive travel management. This growth has earned ACT•1 the distinction of being the largest woman minority-owned employment agency in the United States.