Evening of Empowerment 2024

                                    with Keynote Speaker Lisa Sun

Join us for a celebration of empowerment and inspiration! The Evening of Empowerment brings together 200+ and always offers a takeaway to immediately help you develop professionally and personally. Join us to meet Lisa Sun, who will share a story of empowerment and inspiration like you've never heard before.  

Discover Your Superpower
What would happen if you let go of fear, got off the sidelines, and jumped boldly into the game of life? Lisa Sun, founder and CEO of GRAVITAS, electrifies audiences as she unpacks this vital question in her moving, motivating, and empowering talks. Catalyzing confidence and inspiring innovation, Sun seamlessly blends stories from her personal journey with data and experience-driven insights from her 11 years at McKinsey & Company to offer talks that encourage audiences to choose self-confidence, work to harness their “superpower,” and use gravitas to advance personally and professionally.
 
Sun founded GRAVITAS in 2012, and its origin story dates to her first professional review. The feedback that changed her life? Being told that she “comes across as young and overly enthusiastic at times,” that she “lacked gravitas,” and “should go buy a new dress, big jewelry, and great shoes.” With those words in mind, an understanding of the transformative power of clothing, and a determination to create a game-changing company, Sun filed for a global patent to build shapewear directly into dresses. She launched GRAVITAS as a company with a mission to catalyze confidence. GRAVITAS offers innovative size-inclusive apparel, styling solutions, and content designed to makeover women from the inside-out. Two months after launch, her first collection was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, PEOPLE, and "TODAY" in the same month. Sun and GRAVITAS have not slowed down since; she has been featured on CNN and in Forbes, Fast Company, New York Magazine, Elle, Marie Claire, InStyle, and more.
 
Sun explores why it’s vital to push past your potential, how to transform an idea into a movement, and why you’ve got to bet on yourself every single day. Praised for her passion and warmth, she has spoken for groups including JPMorganChase, Mortgage Bankers Association Summit for Women in Real Estate Finance, HSN, Dress for Success Global Success Summit, The Nantucket Project, and more. In addition to being a changemaker and entrepreneur, Sun is the national bestselling author of GRAVITAS: The 8 Strengths That Redefine Confidence. In the book, she shares her own journey, as well as the superpowers that anyone can call upon to be confident and successful. Gravitas is a USA Today bestseller, and reached number one on the Amazon bestseller list for its genre.
 
Prior to founding GRAVITAS, Sun spent 11 years at McKinsey & Company where she advised leading luxury, fashion and beauty brands and retailers in the US, Asia, Europe and Latin America on strategic and operational issues. At McKinsey, Sun was considered one of the firm’s top experts in the luxury and fashion space, Lisa published perspectives and gave keynote speeches at forums such as the American Express Luxury Summit. In many ways, Lisa “grew up” at McKinsey, being mentored by the firm’s best thinkers, learning from top executives, and having the privilege of leading teams of talented colleagues around the world.
 
Sun has always had a passion for style, for inclusivity, and for helping people look and feel their best, having been a size 22, a size 8, and now proudly a size 12. At every size and age, she has found creative ways to show off her style, having been named one of Washingtonian Magazine's Best Dressed Women. In 2024, she was recognized by Toastmasters as the Golden Gavel Award recipient, which is presented annually to a distinguished individual in the fields of communications and leadership In addition to being a fashion industry disruptor, Sun is the author of the book Gravitas: The 8 Strengths That Redefine Confidence, in which she challenges traditional notions of confidence with a new approach to living with self-assurance. She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University with distinction in Biology and Political Science.

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Women2Women (W2W) is Greater Reading Chamber Alliance's catalyst for developing women leaders and connecting women from diverse backgrounds to learn, share ideas, and mentor each other by offering a forum for women to create connections, gain knowledge, and build strategic alliances to foster their personal potential and career advancement. Joining the network is open to all who support women.

The Greater Reading Chamber Alliance with the mission to be Berks County's leading resource for building a healthy, competitive business community.

***Photos from 2023 courtesy of Zerbe Photography