Springfield keynote speaker for healthcare events and association conferences.
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 Illinois associations, state agencies, hospitals, long-term care providers, schools, and employers across central Illinois.
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Your nurses can change employers without changing anything else. The other hospital is right there.
Springfield has something almost no city its size has. Two full-service teaching hospitals, both Level I trauma centers, both affiliated with the same medical school, operating within the same small city of roughly a hundred thirteen thousand people.
Springfield Memorial opened in 1897 and runs five hundred beds. HSHS St. John’s opened in 1875 and runs in the range of four hundred forty to four hundred sixty, with more than three thousand staff and around seven hundred physicians, podiatrists and dentists on its medical staff. Both are primary teaching sites for the SIU School of Medicine. Between the two systems the workforce numbers in the many thousands, in a city where most people can drive across town in fifteen minutes.
For a Springfield clinician, that geography does something specific. Changing employers here does not mean moving, does not mean a new commute, does not mean leaving the SIU orbit, and does not mean giving up a specialty. It means walking across town. Every nurse, tech, therapist, and support staff member in this city has a serious alternative employer sitting within a few minutes of the one they currently work for, and both organizations are recruiting from the same finite pool every single week.
That is the most frictionless healthcare labor market in the state, and it means the usual retention crutches do not apply. Nobody is staying because leaving is inconvenient. Nobody is staying because there is nowhere else to go. Everyone on the schedule is there by active choice, renewed roughly every time a shift goes badly, and the thing that decides it is almost never the offer sheet. It is the charge nurse, the manager, and whether the last twelve hours felt like they mattered.
Chris has keynoted LeadingAge Illinois, so this is a state and an audience he has already worked in rather than a first visit. He runs national healthcare staffing organizations and has keynoted state association conferences in eleven states, including health care associations in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and Colorado.
Already Worked Illinois
Chris has keynoted LeadingAge Illinois, so the state’s senior care and provider audience is familiar ground.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the hiring and retention calls he speaks about.
Built for Nursing Audiences
Material aimed at the charge nurse and manager layer that decides whether experienced clinical staff stay or cross town.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Springfield holds Illinois state government alongside two major health systems and a medical school, which makes it a natural location for both healthcare and statewide association keynotes.
- Springfield Memorial Hospital and Memorial Health, a 500-bed nonprofit teaching and referral hospital founded in 1897 with Level I trauma designation
- HSHS St. John’s Hospital, founded in 1875, a Level I trauma center and the flagship of Hospital Sisters Health System, with more than three thousand staff in Springfield and a system spanning Illinois and Wisconsin
- Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, whose teaching relationships run through both Springfield hospitals
- State of Illinois agencies and departments, concentrated in the capital, including the Department of Veterans’ Affairs headquartered here, for in-service and leadership development days
- LeadingAge Illinois and the state’s senior care and long-term care providers, an audience Chris has already keynoted
- Illinois statewide hospital, municipal, and education associations, which convene members and hold advocacy days in the capital
- Springfield Public Schools District 186, University of Illinois Springfield, and Lincoln Land Community College
Springfield employers with the same exposure.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but a compact city with concentrated employers makes moving easy for everyone.
State Government
Agencies whose staff have lived through periods when the state’s fiscal position was genuinely uncertain, which leaves a mark on how people invest in an employer.
Higher Education
UIS, Lincoln Land, and the SIU medical campus, all drawing from the same central Illinois pool.
Insurance and Professional Services
The firms and carriers clustered around state government and the capitol.
Education and Local Government
District 186, the city, and Sangamon County, competing for staff with two hospitals and the state.
Springfield and central Illinois venues.
- Springfield hotel and conference space, including the downtown convention venues, for statewide association annual meetings
- The Illinois State Capitol and surrounding state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- Springfield Memorial and HSHS St. John’s campuses for staff, nurse leadership, and all-staff days
- SIU School of Medicine, University of Illinois Springfield, and Lincoln Land Community College
- Chatham, Sherman, Jacksonville, Taylorville, and the central Illinois communities
- Chicago, Peoria, and Bloomington for Illinois organizations that rotate their annual meeting location
Springfield 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.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care conferences and in-service days, including the LeadingAge Illinois audience.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings, advocacy days, and general sessions.
Retention and Frontline Leadership
Supervisor development for employers whose competitor is fifteen minutes away.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on retention in a compact, competitive market.
Keynote topics for your Springfield 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 Springfield
Has Chris spoken in Illinois before?
Does Chris travel to Springfield?
We lose staff to the other hospital across town. Can a keynote change that?
Our nurses have heard a lot of appreciation talk. Will this sound different?
Can the session run for multiple shifts?
What does a Springfield keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to an Illinois audience?
Bring Chris to your Springfield 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 · Illinois speaking · All locations
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