Janine Lyman

Janine Lyman, Co-founder and COO, is highly focused on building systems, developing processes and managing operations at Invata. While having extensive experience in various industries, her mission has always been consistent. When she first joins a company she analyzes operations, identifies strengths and weaknesses, determines what is or isn’t working, and then her primary goal is to create as much efficiency as possible. Her role is where the inefficiencies lie, so she is always working to restore balance and develop healthy company operations. She realizes that her job often depends on her impulses to improve systems, as well as the intuition she has developed by learning to listen to her inner voice. With this in mind, an important goal of hers is to always listen to the quietest voice in the room - she knows it’s often the quieter voices who have something important to share.

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In 2009, Janine graduated from Georgia State University with a Master of Science in Mathematics and a Minor in Music (Cum Laude). Prior to that, she obtained her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (Magna Cum Laude), and also holds an Associates degree in Mathematics and Computer Science (Magna Cum Laude). Given her nature is to identify, fix and improve broken processes, she already knew elements of the educational system were broken yet wasn’t quite yet ready for the fight. Instead, she pursued a job working for a business and career coach in the financial industry and it was then that she started her operations journey, as she was overseeing bookkeeping, curriculums, events, day-to-day financial and client operations, and learning the ins and outs of how to constructively balance it all. 

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Janine truly developed a love for her work and eventually came across an opportunity to work for a tall ship sailing company in the travel tourism industry. She has always had many interests and she thrives on variety and flexibility, so the opportunity was very appealing. Within a few months she quickly established herself as the main operations manager, always finding new ways to improve inefficiencies, and within the next 5 years she grew the company to $3.5 million. Eventually, she developed interest in the software industry, so she began researching companies that built reservation software that the tall ship sailing company could implement, always thinking one step ahead since she knew it could provide a good segue into pursuing her career interests in technology. Once again, she followed her calling and began building systems and processes, though her endeavor was short-lived due to Covid when tourism came to a halt. 

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Luckily, she always remained connected to academia, as she continued teaching higher education math classes to maintain that experience. In a post-covid world, she decided to put her online teaching experience to good use knowing that there was suddenly a giant demand. So she went back into the classroom to help fill the gaps in an effort to improve the educational system as a whole, realizing that she already possessed the right skills to teach online, whereas the majority of teaching staff had little to no experience in the online environment. This shed light on the 10+ year war she had personally experienced between academia and industry, and subsequently provided the bridge to her involvement with Invata.

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What became so evident to Janine is that individuals are expected to be prepared for industry work after spending years in academia, yet she had found herself walking into the office feeling that she had lacked necessary experiential training. This disparity and separation of the worlds caused her frustration with academia, but she began to ask herself, “How do we make education do what it promised us to do?” She realized the two worlds are completely siloed, with the exception of medicine degrees in which residents are required to receive years of hands-on training because lives are at stake. Yet she knows the majority of degrees out there do not provide the necessary tools nor the same due diligence as a medical career. So the time had finally arrived to have the serendipitous meeting of the minds with the Invata team to challenge both traditional academia and industry.

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It is without question that Janine’s current impulse is to not only reform and improve current educational systems, but to innovate and build new systems that close the gap between industry and academia. With experience in both worlds, she is highly qualified to do this. As a highly motivated young woman who came to the US as an international student, pursuing a college degree that cost 4 times the amount as it did for local students and had to be paid out-of-pocket; working in completely different roles yet developing both her adaptability and resilience while working her way through college to support herself; she has demonstrated time and time again the importance of multifaceted career interests and always found the pathway to success. Her life experiences set her up with the capacity to work in different fields and industries and she is ready to take on this challenge. 

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The reason Janine is where she is today is because, in her own words, “I never stopped looking for the potential of opportunity.” It is with this passion and determination that Janine has begun her leadership journey with Invata.

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