Lincoln keynote speaker for state agencies, associations, campuses, and employers.
Chris Sund is a keynote speaker, Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach, and sitting executive who leads national healthcare staffing organizations from Fremont. He speaks on workforce motivation, leadership, retention, and human potential for Lincoln state agencies, health systems, associations, school districts, campuses, and employers.
Response within one business day.
In a lot of this city, everybody already knows what everybody makes.
Lincoln’s economy has an unusual shape. State government and the University of Nebraska together account for roughly a quarter of it, and Lincoln Public Schools sits alongside them. Add the community college and the city and county, and a very large share of the people working in this town are paid on a published schedule. Grades and steps. Salary lines. A district scale set by degree and years of service. Much of it is public record, and the parts that are not are common knowledge within a week of anyone caring to ask.
Then there is the other Lincoln. Around ninety percent of the city’s roughly eight thousand employers have twenty or fewer people. Pay there is private, but nothing else is. In a shop of fifteen, everyone can see who got the new account, who was asked to sit in on the meeting, who the owner talks to first, and who was passed over without explanation.
So whichever half of Lincoln a leader works in, they are managing in the open. And that quietly removes the lever most managers reach for first. If you cannot pay somebody more, or you can but everyone will know exactly what you did and why, then compensation stops being an instrument you play and becomes a fact you work around.
What that changes is the nature of the complaint. When pay is secret, an unhappy employee compares themselves against a guess and the conversation stays vague. When pay is visible, the comparison is exact, and the question is never really about the amount. It is whether the person one step up is genuinely carrying more, and whether anybody senior has actually noticed what this person does all day. Nearly every retention conversation in a transparent environment is a fairness conversation wearing a compensation costume, and leaders who answer the costume instead of the question lose people while believing the problem was money.
That is useful, because the things that decide fairness are almost entirely within a manager’s control and cost nothing. Who is trusted with the difficult piece of work. Whose name goes on it. Who is asked their opinion before the decision rather than after. Whether the person doing the most is ever told so specifically enough that they believe it. In a city where the pay scale is a published document, those become the whole of the job.
Chris makes this argument as someone doing it, not observing it. He runs national healthcare staffing organizations, hires against this same Nebraska labor market, and is direct about the times he got it wrong. He has keynoted state association conferences in eleven states, including LeadingAge Illinois and health care associations in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and Colorado.
No Travel Premium
Based in Fremont, so Lincoln bookings carry no flights and no hotel line in the budget.
Public Sector Rooms
Material built for agencies, campuses, and districts where pay bands are fixed and published.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the calls he speaks about.
Rooms he has already stood in.
Lincoln and the rest of Nebraska, with local organizers, in local rooms.
emPower Breakfast Lincoln
The featured talk at the October breakfast at the Talon Room downtown, on handling objections with the LAARC method.
Omaha · October 2026POWER Conference 2026
The Spark Advantage for HR professionals and executives from across eastern Nebraska.
Norfolk · November 2026Nebraska Cooperative Extension Association
The You Are Capable of More leadership workshop for University of Nebraska Extension faculty and staff.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Lincoln holds the state government, the flagship university, a major health system, and a dense association calendar.
- State of Nebraska agencies and the Capitol community, for leadership development, all-staff meetings, and agency in-service days
- The University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Southeast Community College, for staff development, convocation, and student programming
- Bryan Health and CHI Health St. Elizabeth, for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition events
- Lincoln Public Schools and the surrounding districts, for in-service days and staff development
- Insurance, finance, and technology employers headquartered here, for all-hands gatherings and leadership programming
- State associations, SHRM chapters, the chamber, and nonprofits holding annual meetings and member education, the format Chris works in most often
Lincoln employers managing in the open.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, and the same visibility problem runs through every sector in this city.
Government and Public Agencies
Fixed grades and steps, where a manager’s only real levers are the ones that never appear in a budget.
Higher Education
Campuses where salary lines are known and status is decided by who gets the work rather than the number.
Healthcare
Units on published scales where fairness between shifts and roles drives more turnover than pay does.
Small Employers
Shops of a dozen people where compensation is private and every other decision is completely visible.
Lincoln venues.
- Downtown hotel ballrooms and conference space for state association annual meetings and general sessions
- The University of Nebraska–Lincoln campus, including Nebraska Innovation Campus, for staff and academic events
- Bryan Health and St. Elizabeth campuses for leadership days and nurse recognition
- State agency and Capitol-area facilities for in-service and leadership development sessions
- Lincoln Public Schools and district facilities for convocation and professional development days
- Southeast Community College and corporate meeting space across the city
Lincoln events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
State association annual meetings and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and all-staff meetings.
Engagement and Fairness
Sessions on what people are really asking when they raise pay, and the levers that decide the answer.
Retention and Frontline Leadership
Supervisor development for organizations that cannot compete on salary and have to compete on something.
Corporate and Annual Meetings
All-hands gatherings, kickoffs, and employee appreciation events for Lincoln employers.
Nurse Leadership
Charge nurse and manager development for units inside the city’s health systems.
Keynote topics for your Lincoln 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 Lincoln
Is there a travel cost for Lincoln events?
Has Chris spoken in Lincoln and to Nebraska audiences?
We are a state agency and cannot change anyone’s pay. Is there anything left?
Our people keep raising salary in exit interviews. Are you saying that is not real?
Does Chris speak to campus and school district audiences?
What does a Lincoln keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Lincoln audience?
Keynote speaking around eastern Nebraska.
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 Lincoln 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 · Nebraska speaking · All locations
You Are Capable of More.
Leadership, culture, and peak-performance insights from Chris — only when there’s something genuinely worth sending. No fluff, unsubscribe anytime.