When Lisa Sun was just 22 years old and starting out in her career, her boss at global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company told her that she lacked gravitas. “When I asked her how to get confidence, she said, ‘go get a new dress, big jewelry and great shoes,’” Sun said. So, Sun went out to purchase a new outfit and embraced the larger message. “Feedback is a gift; your best coach is the one who cares enough to tell you,” she said.
Sun continued on at McKinsey & Company, rising in the ranks and traveling around the world to meet with luxury clients—some 200 days a year, for 11 years. Then, she took a year off and started her own company, appropriately named Project Gravitas, to catalyze confidence in women through intelligent fashion. She designs smartly tailored outfits that blend luxury fabrics with slimming technology to empower women of all sizes to feel confident and project their power from the inside out. Her collection is available online and in Lord and Taylor stores in New York and Washington, D.C. (Impressively, Sun unwaveringly convinced Lord and Taylor to group all sizes of her collection together, rather than adapting the standard practice of displaying them in size-specific sections, in an effort to promote all-inclusive fashion.)
Today, Sun continues to travel around the globe, about three to four times a month, to grow her fashion line. She does so with gravitas—along with an arsenal of business travel hacks that she has learned along the years. Here are her best tips for putting the best foot forward when traveling for business.
Never check a bag
Sun is a big advocate of the idea that “every outfit has 30 different ways you can wear it.” In fact, she has a “30 ways to wear it” section on her website, in which she partners with makers of shoes, handbags and other accessories to customize certain styles and show customers the array of options they have with various staple pieces. As a result of this belief, she rarely checks a bag when traveling and stores just a few staples and some fun accessories in a carry-on. “I get a really great MVP, like a nice black dress, and then plan fun accessories and jackets around it,” Sun said. By packing just a dress, two jackets, a pair of pants and two tops, she said she can easily pull five days of outfits out of a carry-on. She typically brings along one nice pair of shoes, and wears flats to run through the airport in.
Leave a pair of sneakers and workout clothes in another city
Sun loves to work out when she travels, but dislikes lugging her gear from one destination to the next. Luckily, she finds herself often visiting the same places. At one point, she was traveling frequently to Dallas, and left a little duffle bag in storage at the same hotel at which she always stayed. She also left a duffle bag with another set of workout gear in her factory in China. “I have several sets of workout clothes all over the world,” Sun said. “It just makes it easier.”
Double up









