Helena keynote speaker for association conferences and healthcare 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 Montana associations, state agencies, hospitals, long-term care providers, schools, and employers.
Response within one business day.
In a town this size, how a supervisor behaves on Tuesday is your employer brand by Friday.
Helena runs about fifty thousand people in the greater area. St. Peter’s Health employs somewhere around seventeen to eighteen hundred of them, making it the largest private employer in the city. Do that arithmetic and roughly one in every twenty eight or thirty people around town works there, which means everybody else is married to one, coaches with one, or sits behind one at church.
The consequence is that in Helena you do not have an employer brand in the marketing sense. You have a reputation, and it is assembled out of what your staff say at the grocery store. No careers page, no signing bonus, and no recruitment campaign moves it. The average commute here is around twelve minutes, so people live inside the community they serve rather than driving in from somewhere else, and that removes the anonymity most employers quietly depend on. A bad week under a bad manager is public information in this town within days.
There is a second thing that makes Helena unusual, and it is worth naming because it is getting rarer every year. St. Peter’s is genuinely independent, an unaffiliated nonprofit serving somewhere between eighty five thousand and a hundred thousand people across five counties from a ninety nine bed acute care hospital. Most hospitals its size have been absorbed into a system by now. Independence means the decisions get made locally by people who live here, which is the good part. It also means there is no corporate float pool to borrow nurses from, no system HR to parachute in, and no shared services to absorb a rough quarter. When retention slips, nobody else is coming to fix it.
Both of those point at the same place. What holds a team together in Helena is the quality of frontline leadership, because everything else that usually cushions an employer is missing. That is what the session is built on.
Chris runs national healthcare staffing organizations and has keynoted state association conferences in eleven states, including a Montana health care association and health care associations in Iowa, South Dakota, and Colorado, along with LeadingAge Illinois.
Already Worked Montana
Chris has keynoted a Montana health care association conference, so the state’s long-term care audience is familiar ground rather than a first visit.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the hiring and retention calls he speaks about.
Independent and Rural Providers
Regular work with hospitals that have no system behind them and have to solve staffing with what they have locally.
Groups Chris speaks for.
As the seat of state government, Helena hosts statewide meetings well out of proportion to its size. These are the kinds of organizations that book a workforce and leadership keynote for an annual conference, a member education day, or an in-service.
- St. Peter’s Health, Helena’s largest private employer with roughly 1,800 staff, an independent nonprofit system running a 99-bed acute care hospital, a 24-bed behavioral health unit, clinics, cancer treatment, home health and hospice, and ambulance services across five counties
- Montana’s statewide health care association, representing skilled nursing and assisted living providers, whose conference Chris has already keynoted
- Montana Hospital Association, the statewide hospital association, which convenes member leadership from across Montana
- State of Montana agencies and departments, concentrated in the capital, for in-service and leadership development days
- Helena Public Schools and Carroll College, along with Helena College of the University of Montana
- City and Lewis and Clark County government, chambers of commerce, and SHRM chapters
- Statewide Montana associations that hold annual meetings and legislative gatherings in Helena
Helena employers with the same exposure.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but a small city with no anonymity treats every employer the same way.
State Government
Agencies and departments where leadership development happens through in-service days rather than outside conferences, and where the supervisor layer carries most of the retention weight.
Education
Helena Public Schools, Carroll College, and Helena College, all recruiting from the same fifty thousand person community.
Local Government and Public Safety
City and county departments where staff serve neighbors they know by name and cannot leave the job at the office.
Small Business and Trades
Contractors, retailers, and service businesses where losing two people is a real operational problem rather than a rounding error.
Helena and southwest Montana venues.
- Helena hotel and conference space for statewide association annual meetings
- The Montana State Capitol and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- St. Peter’s Health campuses for staff, nurse leadership, and all-staff days
- Carroll College and Helena College for campus and staff programming
- Townsend, Boulder, White Sulphur Springs, Deer Lodge, and the five-county area Helena serves
- Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, and Great Falls for Montana organizations that rotate their annual meeting location
Helena events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care conferences and in-service days, including the Montana audience Chris has keynoted.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings.
Rural and Critical Access Healthcare
Leadership days for the critical access hospitals and clinics serving southwest Montana.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on retention in a small, transparent labor market.
School and Education Events
District in-service days, staff kickoffs, and student and athletic banquets.
Keynote topics for your Helena 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 Helena
Has Chris spoken in Montana before?
Does Chris travel to Helena?
We are an independent hospital with no system behind us. Does that matter for the session?
Everybody in town knows everybody. Does that change the approach?
Our audience is a few dozen people. Is that worth booking a keynote?
What does a Helena keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Montana audience?
Bring Chris to your Helena 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 · Montana speaking · All locations
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