Baton Rouge keynote speaker for industrial, healthcare, and association events.
Chris Sund is a keynote speaker, Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach, and sitting executive who leads national healthcare staffing organizations. He speaks on workforce motivation, leadership, retention, and human potential for Louisiana associations, industrial contractors, health systems, state agencies, universities, and employers across the Capital Region.
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You have to build a team in one shift, with people who have never worked together, on a job where mistakes hurt someone.
That is the turnaround problem, and it is the most demanding leadership assignment in this region. Almost nothing written about workplace culture accounts for it.
Baton Rouge sits at the head of one of the densest petrochemical corridors in the country. ExxonMobil has operated here since 1909 and its complex runs a workforce around six thousand between employees and contractors, making it the largest private employer in East Baton Rouge Parish, with a refinery capacity above five hundred thousand barrels a day. The corridor runs south from there through Plaquemine, Geismar, and Gonzales, with Dow, Shell, BASF, Huntsman, and Albemarle along the river. And wrapped around all of it is a contractor ecosystem, with Turner Industries headquartered right here alongside Performance Contractors, Jacobs, CB&I, and dozens of specialty firms.
Those contractors live on turnarounds. A unit comes down on a schedule, hundreds or thousands of craft workers converge on a site, the work runs compressed and long, and then the crew disperses to the next one somewhere else on the river. Pipefitters, boilermakers, welders, scaffolders, and insulators follow the work rather than the employer.
Every ordinary assumption about building a culture is unavailable in that setting. There is no time for relationships to accumulate. There is no next quarter to improve in. You assemble a crew that has never worked together, on a compressed schedule, doing work where a shortcut can injure somebody, and whatever the crew is going to be it becomes in the first shift or it never does.
What actually carries that is not a program. It is whether a superintendent or a foreman is someone people want to work for, because in this market crews come back or they do not. A leader with a reputation for treating people right can staff a turnaround by making phone calls. One without it gets whoever is still available, which shows up in schedule and in safety. That is the session, and it applies just as directly to a hospital unit assembling a shift of travelers and float staff.
Chris runs national healthcare staffing organizations and has keynoted state association conferences in eleven states, including LeadingAge Illinois and health care associations in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and Colorado.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the hiring and retention calls he speaks about.
Contingent Workforces
Staffing is built on short assignments and assembled teams, which is the same problem a turnaround crew presents in a different uniform.
Safety-Adjacent Formats
Works as a safety stand-down, a kickoff before a turnaround, or a supervisor development day, and runs multiple times for shift coverage.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Baton Rouge is really three markets stacked together, which means a workforce keynote here can reach industrial, public sector, and clinical audiences in the same week.
- Industrial contractors and EPC firms including Turner Industries, headquartered in Baton Rouge, along with Performance Contractors, Jacobs, CB&I, Wood Group, and the specialty firms staffing turnarounds along the river
- ExxonMobil Baton Rouge and the corridor plants including Dow in Plaquemine and the Geismar and Gonzales operations, for safety, leadership, and all-hands events
- Our Lady of the Lake, Baton Rouge General, and Ochsner, along with Pennington Biomedical Research Center, for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition events
- State of Louisiana agencies and departments, with more than thirty five thousand classified state employees based in Baton Rouge across every executive branch department
- LSU and Southern University, for campus leadership, faculty, and staff programming
- Louisiana statewide associations in hospital, long-term care, municipal, contractor, and education sectors, which convene members and hold advocacy days in the capital
- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, b1BANK, and the Port of Greater Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge employers building teams fast.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but assembling capable crews quickly is the shared discipline of this region.
Industrial Contractors
Turnaround and maintenance firms where a crew forms in a shift, and where the foreman’s reputation determines who shows up next time.
Refining and Chemicals
Plant operations teams working alongside contract crews, where safety culture has to cross an employment boundary.
State Government
Agencies with tens of thousands of employees in the capital, where leadership development happens through in-service days.
Higher Education and Research
LSU, Southern, and Pennington, drawing from and feeding into the region’s technical workforce.
Baton Rouge and Capital Region venues.
- Raising Cane’s River Center and downtown hotel space for statewide association annual meetings
- The Louisiana State Capitol and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- Plant and contractor facilities along the river corridor for safety stand-downs and shift-friendly all-hands sessions
- Our Lady of the Lake, Baton Rouge General, and Ochsner campuses for staff and nurse leadership days
- LSU and Southern University for campus and staff programming
- Gonzales, Geismar, Plaquemine, and Ascension Parish, with New Orleans and Lafayette for organizations that rotate their meeting location
Baton Rouge events Chris speaks at.
Industrial and Plant Meetings
Safety stand-downs, turnaround kickoffs, all-hands gatherings, and supervisor development days.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings, advocacy days, and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings.
Retention and Frontline Leadership
Supervisor development for organizations that assemble teams quickly and need them to work immediately.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care conferences and in-service days.
University and Student Leadership
Campus leadership programming, student organization events, and staff development.
Keynote topics for your Baton Rouge event.
Every session is customized for the audience, the format, and what you are actually trying to change.
See what conference organizers and HR leaders have said after booking Chris.
Booking a keynote speaker in Baton Rouge
Has Chris spoken in Louisiana before?
Does Chris travel to Baton Rouge?
Can the session work as a safety stand-down or turnaround kickoff?
Our crews are contractors, not our employees. Does that change anything?
Will this land with a craft audience?
What does a Baton Rouge keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Louisiana audience?
Bring Chris to your Baton Rouge event.
Send your date, location, and audience. You will get availability and a quote back within one business day.
info@chrissund.com · 402-212-5771 · Louisiana speaking · All locations
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