Frankfort keynote speaker for state agency events and association meetings.
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 Kentucky associations, state agencies, healthcare organizations, schools, and employers across the Bluegrass.
Response within one business day.
Your people can quit you without changing a single other thing about their life.
That is the specific problem with running an organization in Frankfort, and it is the opposite of the problem most small capitals have.
Frankfort sits on Interstate 64 roughly halfway between Lexington and Louisville. Bluegrass Airport is under thirty minutes away. Interstate 75 is a twenty minute drive. The city sits inside a combined statistical area anchored by Lexington, and the census treats it as its own small micropolitan area orbiting much larger ones. Nearly twenty eight percent of the local workforce is in public administration.
Put those together and you get a labor market with no walls. When someone in Pierre or Juneau leaves a job, they are usually leaving the region, which is a large decision that gets made slowly. When someone in Frankfort leaves a job, they can take a position at the University of Kentucky, a Louisville health system, or a company off I-64 and keep their house, their kids’ school, their church, and most of their weekend. Quitting is close to frictionless here.
What that means practically is that the passive retention every employer quietly relies on does not exist for you. Nobody is staying because leaving would be inconvenient. Everyone on your payroll is there by active choice, renewed roughly every time they get frustrated on a Tuesday. That makes the daily experience of working for a particular supervisor the entire retention strategy rather than one component of it, and it is where the session concentrates.
There is a telling detail about Frankfort’s gravity worth noticing. Several of Kentucky’s biggest statewide associations, including the Hospital Association and the Association of Health Care Facilities, keep their offices in Louisville rather than in the capital. They come to Frankfort for the legislature and go home. A lot of your workforce thinks about the city the same way.
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.
Competitive Labor Markets
Daily work in healthcare staffing, an industry where every employee has a standing offer somewhere else and stays anyway or does not.
Easy Travel
Frankfort is reachable through Lexington or Louisville, which keeps conference dates simple to schedule.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Frankfort is where Kentucky’s statewide organizations gather even when they are headquartered elsewhere, which makes it a strong location for a workforce keynote in front of leadership from across the commonwealth.
- Kentucky Bar Association, headquartered in Frankfort, an integrated bar with membership in the range of nineteen thousand, which runs continuing education programming for its members
- Kentucky Hospital Association, serving the commonwealth’s hospitals since 1929 and representing all 126 hospitals in the state, based in Louisville and regularly convening members in the capital
- Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities and Kentucky Center for Assisted Living, representing long-term care, personal care homes, and assisted living across the commonwealth from its Louisville office, with members throughout central Kentucky
- Kentucky State University, the historically Black land grant university in Frankfort, for student leadership, faculty, and staff programming
- Frankfort Area Chamber of Commerce, established in 1947 with roughly 700 member businesses and individuals and an active workforce development role, along with the Kentucky Capital Development Corporation
- State agencies and cabinets across the executive branch, for in-service and leadership development days
- Franklin County Public Schools and regional healthcare, manufacturing, and distilling employers
Frankfort employers with the same exposure.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but an open labor market cuts every employer in the city the same way.
State Government
Agencies and cabinets competing for the same people as two metro areas within an hour, where leadership development happens through in-service days rather than outside conferences.
Manufacturing
Employers like Montaplast and Topy, where trained operators are portable and the plant down the interstate is always hiring.
Bourbon and Distilling
Buffalo Trace and the distilling and hospitality operations built around Kentucky’s signature industry, staffed heavily on the frontline.
Education and Higher Ed
Kentucky State University and Franklin County Public Schools, recruiting against districts and campuses in both neighboring metros.
Frankfort and central Kentucky venues.
- Frankfort hotel and conference space for statewide association meetings and legislative day gatherings
- The Kentucky State Capitol and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- Kentucky State University for campus, student, and staff programming
- Buffalo Trace and the distillery venues used for corporate and hospitality events
- Lexington and Louisville for Kentucky organizations that rotate their annual meeting location
- Georgetown, Shelbyville, Versailles, and the surrounding Bluegrass communities
Frankfort events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings, legislative days, and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and system meetings across central Kentucky.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, personal care, and assisted living conferences and in-service days.
University and Student Leadership
Campus leadership programming, student organization events, and staff development.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on retention in an open labor market.
Corporate and Annual Meetings
All-hands gatherings, sales kickoffs, and employee appreciation events.
Keynote topics for your Frankfort 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 Frankfort
Has Chris spoken in Kentucky before?
Does Chris travel to Frankfort?
We keep losing people to Lexington and Louisville. Does the session address that?
We cannot outbid the metros on salary. Is a keynote just a morale patch?
Can Chris speak at a legislative day or member advocacy event?
What does a Frankfort keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Kentucky audience?
Bring Chris to your Frankfort 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 · Kentucky speaking · All locations
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