Jackson keynote speaker for healthcare, association, and state agency 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 Mississippi associations, health systems, state agencies, universities, and employers across the Jackson metro.
Response within one business day.
Your people are not burned out. They are worn down by being stopped from doing the job they trained for.
Those are different problems and they need different responses, and confusing them is why so much wellness spending in this city has changed nothing.
UMMC’s own vice chancellor put the situation plainly, describing it as a Level I trauma center, a tertiary care center, and an academic medical center, and the only one of those in a state with the sickest patients in the nation. That is not outside criticism. That is the institution’s own leadership naming the conditions.
UMMC is Mississippi’s only academic medical center, with the state’s only Level I trauma center, only children’s hospital, only Level IV neonatal intensive care unit, and only organ and bone marrow transplant programs. Seven hospitals, thirty five clinics, more than two hundred telehealth sites, seven health science schools, and better than ten thousand employees, accounting for around a tenth of the Jackson metro economy on its own.
Being the only one of everything in a state with that much unmet need produces a particular kind of damage in staff, and it is not exhaustion. Exhaustion comes from working too many hours and it responds to rest. What clinicians here carry is the accumulated weight of seeing people arrive later and sicker than they needed to, over and over, because the care that should have happened upstream did not exist. The gap between what you were trained to do and what the situation permits you to do has a name, moral injury, and no amount of paid time off touches it.
A leader cannot fix a state’s health system from a nursing unit, and the session does not pretend otherwise. What it does is stop the most common mistake, which is treating that frustration as a personal resilience deficit and answering it with a wellness app. Doing that tells a nurse the problem is her. Naming the situation accurately is protective in a way that resilience programming is not, and it is free.
Worth saying that this is winnable ground. UMMC’s hospital safety grade climbed from an F a decade ago through several years of Ds and Cs to its first B. Sustained leadership moves things here. It just takes longer and gets less credit than it does elsewhere.
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.
Not a Wellness Talk
The session does not ask clinicians to be more resilient about conditions they did not create, which is why it lands in rooms that have heard that pitch before.
Sole-Provider Settings
Regular work with hospitals that are the only option for their region and cannot transfer the problem anywhere else.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Jackson holds Mississippi’s state government and the state’s only academic medical center, which makes it the natural place for a statewide healthcare and workforce keynote.
- University of Mississippi Medical Center, founded in 1955 and the state’s only academic medical center, with more than ten thousand employees, seven hospitals, thirty five clinics, and over two hundred telehealth sites statewide
- Children’s of Mississippi, the state’s only children’s hospital, along with the Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants and the Conerly Critical Care Hospital on the Jackson campus
- Baptist Medical Center, St. Dominic’s, and Merit Health Central, the metro’s other major hospital employers
- State of Mississippi agencies and departments, concentrated in the capital, for in-service and leadership development days
- Mississippi statewide associations in hospital, long-term care, municipal, and education sectors, which convene members and hold advocacy days in Jackson
- Jackson State University, Belhaven University, Millsaps College, and Hinds Community College
- Jackson Public Schools, city and Hinds County government, and metro employers across insurance, logistics, and manufacturing
Jackson employers carrying similar weight.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but the gap between what people trained to do and what conditions allow runs across the public sector here.
State Government
Agencies and caseworkers serving a state with substantial need on constrained budgets, where leadership development happens through in-service days.
Education
Jackson Public Schools and the metro districts, where teachers face the same distance between their training and their daily conditions.
Higher Education
Jackson State, Belhaven, Millsaps, and Hinds Community College, training the workforce the region depends on.
Public Safety and Social Services
First responders and social service staff doing high-stress work with limited resources and little external recognition.
Jackson and central Mississippi venues.
- Jackson Convention Complex and downtown hotel space for statewide association annual meetings
- The Mississippi State Capitol and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- UMMC campuses for staff, nurse leadership, preceptor, and all-staff days
- Baptist, St. Dominic’s, and Merit Health facilities across the metro
- Jackson State University and the metro colleges for campus and staff programming
- Madison, Ridgeland, Brandon, Flowood, and Vicksburg, with Hattiesburg, Tupelo, and the Gulf Coast for organizations that rotate their meeting location
Jackson events Chris speaks at.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings, the strongest fit in this city.
Nurse Leadership
Charge nurse and nurse manager development for the layer that decides whether clinical staff stay.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings, advocacy days, and general sessions.
Rural and Critical Access Healthcare
Leadership days for the community hospitals and clinics serving Mississippi counties.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care conferences and in-service days.
University and Student Leadership
Campus leadership programming, student organization events, and faculty and staff development.
Keynote topics for your Jackson 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 Jackson
Has Chris spoken in Mississippi before?
Does Chris travel to Jackson?
Our staff have sat through resilience training and it did not help. Why would this be different?
Can the session address moral injury specifically?
Can the session run for multiple shifts?
What does a Jackson keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Mississippi audience?
Bring Chris to your Jackson 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 · Mississippi speaking · All locations