Madison keynote speaker for healthcare, state government, 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 Wisconsin associations, health systems, state agencies, and employers across Dane County.
Response within one business day.
Four employers set the standard in this town. Everybody else gets measured against them.
Madison has a labor market dominated by a handful of very large institutions, which does something specific to what your employees expect.
UW Health employs somewhere around twenty two thousand people across seven hospitals and dozens of clinics. UW-Madison employs a similar number. Epic Systems runs roughly thirteen thousand people on its campus in Verona, and American Family Insurance is in the same range. Add the State of Wisconsin, since Madison is the capital, plus SSM Health, Exact Sciences, CUNA Mutual, Alliant Energy, Promega, and the Madison Metropolitan School District, and you have a metro of well under a million people where a few organizations employ a very large share of everyone working.
When employment is concentrated like that, the biggest employers set the local norm whether they intend to or not. What counts as normal pay, normal hours, normal benefits, normal onboarding, normal career development in Madison is largely whatever those organizations do. Your employees are not benchmarking you against a national average they have never seen. They are benchmarking you against the place where their neighbor works, and they hear about it constantly.
The second effect is about reputation. In a concentrated market, people move laterally among the same small set of employers over a career, which means your former employees are working alongside your current ones somewhere else in town. How you treat people does not stay inside your building. It circulates through a professional community small enough that everyone eventually hears, and it shows up later in who is willing to apply.
None of that is a reason for a smaller employer to give up, because the giants cannot be everywhere at once. What a large institution struggles to deliver consistently is the thing an individual supervisor can deliver every week, which is attention. Being known by the person you report to does not scale well at twenty thousand people, and that is precisely where a smaller organization can win.
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, and has spoken in Wisconsin for the American College of Healthcare Executives Wisconsin chapter.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the hiring and retention calls he speaks about.
Spoken in Wisconsin
Keynote work for Wisconsin healthcare leadership audiences, plus association conferences across the midwest.
Public, Clinical, and Corporate Rooms
Works for a state agency leadership day, a health system all-staff meeting, or a company all-hands.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Madison combines the state capital and a flagship university with two of the largest private employers in Wisconsin.
- UW Health, one of the region’s largest employers across seven hospitals and dozens of clinics, along with SSM Health, for nurse leadership, all-staff, and recognition events
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison, employing a workforce in the tens of thousands, for campus and staff programming
- The State of Wisconsin and its departments and agencies, for in-service and leadership development days
- Epic Systems in Verona and American Family Insurance, two of the largest private employers in the state, for company all-hands
- Exact Sciences, Promega, CUNA Mutual, Alliant Energy, and TDS Telecom, across the region’s life sciences, insurance, and technology sectors
- Wisconsin statewide associations meeting at Monona Terrace and downtown hotels, the format Chris works in most often
- Dane County, the City of Madison, the Madison Metropolitan School District, and long-term care providers across south central Wisconsin
Madison employers competing with the giants.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, and every employer in this metro recruits against the same few large institutions.
State Government and Education
Agencies and campuses whose pay is fixed while the private benchmark down the road is not.
Healthcare
Clinical teams recruited from the same small pool by a handful of systems.
Technology and Insurance
Employers whose candidates all have a very specific alternative in mind.
Smaller and Mid-Sized Employers
Organizations that cannot outspend the giants and have to be better at the human part.
Madison and regional venues.
- Monona Terrace and downtown hotel ballrooms for statewide association annual meetings
- State agency facilities across the capitol square for in-service and leadership days
- UW Health and SSM campuses for nurse leadership and all-staff days
- Corporate campuses across Madison, Verona, Middleton, and Fitchburg for company all-hands
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison for campus and staff programming
- Sun Prairie, Janesville, and communities across south central Wisconsin
Madison events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide 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.
Retention and Frontline Leadership
Supervisor development for employers recruiting against much larger institutions.
Nurse Leadership
Charge nurse and manager development for the layer that decides whether people stay.
Corporate and Company All-Hands
Company meetings, kickoffs, and leadership summits across the region’s employers.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on recognition and retention.
Keynote topics for your Madison 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 Madison
Has Chris spoken in Wisconsin?
Does Chris travel to Madison?
We cannot compete with the big employers on pay. What is the honest answer?
We are a state agency with fixed classifications. Does this apply to us?
Can the session reach multiple sites and shifts?
What does a Madison keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Wisconsin audience?
Bring Chris to your Madison 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 · Wisconsin speaking · All locations