Columbus keynote speaker for corporate, 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 Ohio associations, financial services and insurance employers, health systems, state agencies, and organizations across central Ohio.
Response within one business day.
For a lot of your people, you are the first boss they have ever had. That is permanent.
Columbus employs first-jobbers at a scale almost no other American city matches, and most of the supervisors doing it have never been told what that actually means.
Ohio State is the region’s largest employer at close to thirty thousand people and also its largest producer of graduates, which is why site selection analysts describe this region as the talent factory of the Midwest, with the university deliberately linked to Columbus State, area school districts, and employers. Those graduates walk into a metro built to absorb them. JPMorgan Chase runs one of its largest footprints outside New York here, near twenty thousand people across the Polaris and McCoy campuses. Nationwide is headquartered downtown and Columbus is regularly called the insurance capital of America, with Grange, State Auto, Safelite, Root and Huntington filling in around it. Financial activities alone account for something like one hundred twenty six thousand jobs across the metro. OhioHealth runs twelve hospitals and better than two hundred outpatient sites, and the Wexner Medical Center employs over twenty three thousand.
So an unusually large share of this city’s workforce is inside the first three years of their working life. Claims associates, service reps, analysts, new nurses, operations staff, all of them at their first real job.
Here is the part that matters. Whatever a person’s first manager does becomes their definition of normal, and it stays that way for a very long time. If that manager takes credit, they will assume managers take credit. If that manager notices good work without being prompted, they will expect that from every boss afterward and be disappointed for thirty years when they do not get it. Nobody chooses their baseline. It is simply set by whoever happened to be running the department when they were twenty three.
Columbus is where that imprinting happens at industrial scale, which makes a frontline supervisor in a claims operation or on a med-surg floor here far more consequential than their title suggests. They are not just managing output this quarter. They are writing somebody’s permanent definition of what a boss is.
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.
Early Career Audiences
Material for organizations hiring at volume out of school, where onboarding and first-supervisor quality decide the first-year attrition rate.
NFBA Conference and Expo
Take Back Your Time with AI, a live working session for post-frame builders at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Columbus combines the state capital, a flagship university, one of the country’s deepest insurance clusters, and three major health systems.
- Ohio State University and the Wexner Medical Center, the region’s largest employer, with a medical center running more than eighteen hundred beds, Level I trauma, and over twenty three thousand employees including roughly five thousand nurses
- OhioHealth with twelve hospitals and more than two hundred outpatient sites, plus Mount Carmel Health System and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition events
- Nationwide, headquartered downtown, along with Grange, State Auto, Safelite, Root, and the insurance community that gives Columbus its reputation as an industry capital
- JPMorgan Chase, running one of its largest campuses outside New York, plus Huntington Bancshares and Bread Financial, for all-hands gatherings and leadership summits
- State of Ohio agencies, employing above twenty two thousand across the region, for in-service and leadership development days
- Ohio statewide associations in hospital, long-term care, municipal, and education sectors, which convene members in the capital
- Honda’s central Ohio operations, Cardinal Health, AEP, Worthington, Amazon’s Licking County operations, and the Intel construction workforce
Columbus employers hiring at the start of a career.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but first-job imprinting happens across this economy.
Insurance and Financial Operations
Claims, service, underwriting and analyst teams hiring in volume out of school, where first-year attrition is the defining cost.
Healthcare
Systems onboarding new graduate nurses and allied health staff whose first preceptor shapes an entire career.
Higher Education and Public Sector
The university and state agencies employing large early-career and student workforces.
Manufacturing, Logistics, and Construction
Honda’s operations, the distribution corridor, and the skilled trades pipeline feeding regional construction.
Columbus and central Ohio venues.
- The Greater Columbus Convention Center and downtown hotel ballrooms for statewide association annual meetings
- The Ohio Statehouse and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- Corporate campuses downtown, at Polaris, and across the metro for all-hands and leadership summits
- Wexner Medical Center, OhioHealth, Mount Carmel, and Nationwide Children’s campuses for nurse leadership and all-staff days
- Ohio State and Columbus State Community College for campus and staff programming
- Dublin, Westerville, Grove City, and the Licking County corridor
Columbus events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings, advocacy days, and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often.
Corporate and Operations Meetings
All-hands gatherings, leadership summits, and kickoffs for insurance, banking, and operations organizations.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings.
Nurse Leadership and Preceptors
Charge nurse and preceptor development for the people who shape a new clinician’s expectations.
Retention and Frontline Leadership
Supervisor development aimed at first-year attrition and early career engagement.
University and Student Leadership
Campus leadership programming, student organization events, and staff development.
Keynote topics for your Columbus 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 Columbus
Has Chris spoken in Ohio before?
Does Chris travel to Columbus?
We lose a lot of people in their first year. Can the session address that specifically?
Should we aim the session at our new hires or at their managers?
Can Chris speak to a corporate operations audience rather than a healthcare one?
What does a Columbus keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to an Ohio audience?
Keynote speaking across Ohio.
Each city page covers the local employers, the venues Chris speaks in, and the specific workforce pressure leaders there are working on.
Bring Chris to your Columbus 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 · Ohio speaking · All locations
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