Howroyd to Be Celebrated at HBCU Honors Nov. 30 on BET, BET Her

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Nov. 21, 2025) – For North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State alumna Janice Bryant Howroyd, 2025 is turning out to be a very special year.

Over the summer, the internationally recognized entrepreneur was inducted as an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta alongside former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile, Queen Latifah (Dana Owens) and Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee at the sorority’s national convention. She was also named to the prestigious LA500 by the Los Angeles Business Journal, marking her second year on the list, and featured in the North Carolina A&T documentary “Our Blues Make Us Gold” which screened at the Martha’s Vineyard Black Film Festival and debuted on Amazon’s Prime Video.

Now, Howroyd will be honored during Thanksgiving weekend at the third annual 2025 HBCU Honors with producer/recording artist David Banner and Pastor/Gospel legend Shirley Ceasar. The celebration will premiere Nov. 30 on the national cable channels BET and BET Her at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Howroyd is being recognized with the Visionary Founder Award in honor of her work as founder/CEO of The ActOne Group, a global human resources enterprise that provides employment, workforce management and other services to a diverse range of industries and businesses in 33 different countries.

ActOne is the largest privately held, minority woman-owned personnel company founded in the United States, and Howroyd is well known as the first African American woman to create and own a billion-dollar company.

Born and raised in Tarboro, North Carolina, Howroyd completed her studies at A&T and then moved to Los Angeles for a job at Billboard magazine. Within two years, she scraped together $1,000 and opened ActOne in a small Beverly Hills office.

As Howroyd relentlessly grew her business, she launched sub brands to serve specific industries: AppleOne, All's Well, AT-Tech, ACT-1 Personnel Services, Agile-1, ACT-1Govt and A-Check Global among them. In addition to her professional success, she has served on the boards of numerous government and private sector organizations, including the U.S. Department of Labor’s Workforce Initiative Board, the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board and the A&T Board of Trustees.

Grammy nominee Banner, an alumnus of Southern University, will be honored with the Cultural Impact Award, while Caesar – the “First Lady of Gospel,” senior pastor of Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church in Durham, North Carolina, and a Shaw University alumna – will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Ceasar’s career spans six decades and includes more than 40 albums, 11 Grammys and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Emmy-nominated actress and comedian Kym Whitley, a Fisk University alumna, is returning as host, which she described as “like coming home.” “This show is a joyful reminder of everything our schools represent — faith, excellence, community and legacy,” she said.

HBCU Honors creator and producer Michelle M. Bailey said this year’s celebration is especially timely: “We’re in a defining moment where the legacy of HBCUs deserves not only to be preserved but amplified. Our return to BET celebrates the unity, pride and progress that define HBCU excellence — the same excellence that nurtured me at my beloved alma mater, Spelman College.

“Thanksgiving weekend is the perfect time to honor the institutions that continue to educate, empower and shape generations of trailblazers.”