Greensboro keynote speaker for healthcare, manufacturing, 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 North Carolina associations, health systems, advanced manufacturing employers, and organizations across the Piedmont Triad.
Response within one business day.
Nobody here has done this work before. Including the people supervising it.
Greensboro is standing up industries that have never existed in this region, and that creates a leadership situation almost no organization prepares for.
Toyota is building its first automotive battery plant anywhere in the world at the Greensboro-Randolph megasite, a campus expected to employ better than five thousand people across more than a dozen production lines. Boom Supersonic built its first full scale manufacturing facility at Piedmont Triad International Airport to produce supersonic airliners, a project bringing around seventeen hundred jobs. Honda Aircraft has its world headquarters here. Around them sit Cone Health as the region’s largest employer, Guilford County Schools, UNC Greensboro, North Carolina A and T, the nation’s largest historically Black university, plus a FedEx air cargo hub, Volvo Trucks, and a deep distribution base.
Think about what battery manufacturing and supersonic aircraft have in common. There is no local labor history in either one. Nobody in this region grew up in a battery plant. Nobody’s father built a supersonic airliner. The talent is being assembled from people who did related work in other industries and from graduates who have never done any of it, and they are learning together in real time.
The tricky part is that the supervisors are in the same position. In a mature industry, a lead has fifteen years on the people they oversee and authority follows naturally from that. In a brand new one, the supervisor learned this eight months ago and someone on their crew may already understand a piece of it better than they do.
Leaders handle that badly when they try to protect an expertise they do not have. Pretending to know is the fastest way to lose a technical team, because they can tell, and it also shuts down the only mechanism that gets a new operation good, which is people saying openly when something is not working.
What works instead is saying plainly what you do not know yet, hiring and promoting for how fast someone learns rather than what they have already done, and treating the first year as a period where being corrected is a sign the system is functioning. Places that get this right build capability quickly. Places that get it wrong spend years pretending.
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.
Startups at Industrial Scale
Material for operations standing up something new, where nobody has the experience the org chart assumes.
Plant, Clinical, and Campus Rooms
Works for a manufacturing crew session, a health system leadership day, or a university and association meeting.
Groups Chris speaks for.
The Triad pairs an established health system and university base with some of the largest new manufacturing investments in the country.
- Cone Health, the region’s largest employer, for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition events
- Toyota Battery Manufacturing at the Greensboro-Randolph megasite, for crew, technician, and supervisor sessions
- Boom Supersonic and Honda Aircraft Company, along with the aviation cluster at Piedmont Triad International Airport
- FedEx, Volvo Trucks, Ralph Lauren, and the region’s distribution employers, for shift-repeated sessions
- North Carolina A and T and UNC Greensboro, including the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, for campus and staff programming
- Guilford County Schools and Guilford County government
- North Carolina statewide associations meeting in Greensboro, the format Chris works in most often, and long-term care providers across the Triad
Greensboro employers building something new.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, and it is standing up new roles and technologies just as fast.
Battery and Advanced Manufacturing
Plants staffing up for processes with no local workforce history to draw on.
Aviation and Aerospace
Teams building aircraft programs where the learning curve is the actual job.
Healthcare
Systems adopting new technology and roles faster than anyone can become expert in them.
Logistics and Distribution
Operations scaling quickly with supervisors promoted well ahead of their experience.
Greensboro and Triad venues.
- The Koury Convention Center and downtown hotel ballrooms for statewide association meetings
- Cone Health campuses for nurse leadership and all-staff days
- Manufacturing and aviation facilities for shift-repeated crew and supervisor sessions
- North Carolina A and T and UNC Greensboro for campus and staff programming
- Distribution centers across the airport and interstate corridors
- High Point, Winston-Salem, Burlington, and communities across the Triad
Greensboro events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often.
Plant and Operations Meetings
Crew sessions, safety kickoffs, and supervisor development across new manufacturing operations.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings.
Emerging and New Leaders
Development for supervisors promoted into roles ahead of their experience.
Human Potential and Development
Sessions built on the idea that people can do work they have never done before.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on hiring, onboarding, and retention.
Keynote topics for your Greensboro 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 Greensboro
Has Chris spoken in North Carolina and the southeast?
Does Chris travel to Greensboro?
Our supervisors are new to this industry too. Does that undermine them?
We are hiring people with no experience in this work. Will they be able to do it?
Can the session run for multiple shifts?
What does a Greensboro keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a North Carolina audience?
Keynote speaking across North Carolina.
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 Greensboro 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 · North Carolina speaking · All locations