Columbia keynote speaker for association conferences and employer 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 South Carolina associations, state agencies, hospitals, long-term care providers, universities, and employers across the Midlands.
Response within one business day.
This city is built to move people through. That is why it stops noticing when the wrong ones leave.
Look at what Columbia’s three biggest institutions actually do for a living.
Fort Jackson is the Army’s largest basic combat training center, taking in somewhere in the range of forty five to fifty thousand recruits a year and graduating essentially all of them to somewhere else. The University of South Carolina enrolls more than thirty six thousand students on a campus threaded through the middle of the city and exists to hand them a diploma and send them out. Prisma Health Richland is a teaching hospital affiliated with the university, training doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who then disperse across South Carolina. The State of South Carolina employs more than thirty two thousand people across the metro, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina about seven thousand more.
So Columbia’s defining institutions are all, in one form or another, in the throughput business. People arrive, get processed, and leave, and that is not a malfunction. It is the design.
Here is the risk that creates for employers here, and it is subtle enough that it usually goes unnamed. In a city where leaving is the normal and expected thing, turnover stops registering as a signal. It becomes weather. A manager in Columbia sees people cycle out constantly by design, so when a genuinely good ten-year employee resigns, the organizational reflex is a shrug and a requisition rather than an honest question about why. Nobody investigates, because departures here do not feel like information.
They are information. The discipline this session builds is the one Columbia’s environment quietly erodes: telling the difference between the turnover that is structural and the turnover that is a message about a specific supervisor, and refusing to treat the second kind as if it were the first.
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.
Reads Turnover Honestly
Daily work in an industry built on short assignments, which forces a clear line between expected departures and avoidable ones.
Large-Room Formats
Comfortable in general sessions for a statewide association as well as a hospital all-staff day or a campus program.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Columbia is South Carolina’s capital and largest metro, which puts state government, the flagship university, the state’s largest health system, and a major Army installation in one place.
- Prisma Health, the largest health system in South Carolina with more than fifteen thousand employees, anchored in Columbia by Richland Hospital, a Level I adult trauma center opened in 1892 and affiliated with the university, and by Baptist Hospital, founded in 1914
- State of South Carolina agencies and departments, providing more than thirty two thousand jobs across the metro, for in-service and leadership development days
- University of South Carolina, over two hundred years old and the largest university in the state, for campus leadership, faculty, and staff programming, alongside Benedict College, Columbia College, and Midlands Technical College
- Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, the only South Carolina owned and operated health insurance carrier, employing around seven thousand people in Columbia
- Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic combat training installation, with a substantial military and civilian workforce and extensive family support operations
- South Carolina statewide associations in hospital, long-term care, municipal, and education sectors, which convene members and hold advocacy days in the capital
- Lexington Medical Center, MUSC Health, Richland and Lexington county school districts, and Midlands manufacturers including Nephron, Michelin, and Samsung
Columbia employers with the same blind spot.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but normalized turnover is a Midlands-wide condition.
State and Local Government
Agencies employing tens of thousands across the metro, where a long-tenured departure often gets processed rather than examined.
Higher Education
Campuses where student turnover is total every four years, and staff turnover can hide inside that rhythm.
Insurance and Professional Services
Blue Cross Blue Shield and the professional firms clustered around state government and healthcare.
Manufacturing and Distribution
Nephron, Michelin, Samsung, and the fulfillment and logistics operations running shifts across the Midlands.
Columbia and Midlands venues.
- The Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center and downtown hotel space for statewide association annual meetings
- The South Carolina State House and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- Prisma Health Richland and Baptist campuses for staff, nurse leadership, and all-staff days
- University of South Carolina and Midlands Technical College for campus and staff programming
- Lexington, West Columbia, Cayce, Irmo, and Blythewood across the Midlands
- Charleston, Greenville, and Myrtle Beach for South Carolina organizations that rotate their annual meeting location
Columbia events Chris speaks at.
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 across the Midlands.
Nurse Leadership
Charge nurse and nurse manager development for the layer that decides whether experienced staff stay.
University and Student Leadership
Campus leadership programming, student organization events, and faculty and staff development.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care conferences and in-service days.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on reading turnover accurately and acting on it.
Keynote topics for your Columbia 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 Columbia
Has Chris spoken in South Carolina before?
Does Chris travel to Columbia?
Some of our turnover really is unavoidable. How does the session handle that?
Can the session work for a large general session audience?
Can Chris speak at an advocacy day or association gathering during session?
What does a Columbia keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a South Carolina audience?
Bring Chris to your Columbia 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 · South Carolina speaking · All locations