How Chris Sund Helped Grow Uniti Med 10x

Chris left a well-established career to help run a startup. He had already spent years in healthcare staffing and, before that, in restaurants and beverage sales. What he found at Uniti Med was a chance to build something with a simple mission: staffing with heart.

Today, as President and COO of Uniti Med and GQR Healthcare, Chris leads two nationally recognized healthcare staffing organizations with that shared mission. With over a decade in healthcare staffing, he oversees national operations, strategy and growth, connecting compassionate, skilled clinicians with the facilities that need them most.

A culture people did not want to leave

Fast growth usually costs culture. At Uniti Med, the culture was recognized while the company was growing. The recognition came from industry analysts, outside judges, employees and the clinicians on assignment:

In 2026, Staffing Industry Analysts also named Chris to its inaugural Healthcare Staffing 100.

Lesson 1: Hire for traits, then train the experience

Some of Chris’s best hires had little relevant job experience. One recruiter came from work that had nothing to do with the role. Chris hired him because he was humble, driven, emotionally intelligent and had integrity. The team trained him, and he went on to win top producer awards. Chris’s reasoning is simple: you can train experience, but you cannot necessarily train traits.

Chris teaches this in You Are Capable of a Better Culture. Go deeper: How to Hire for Traits Over Experience.

Lesson 2: The interview was last year

When Chris promotes someone into leadership, the interview is not what wins the role. The last year does. He looks at whether a person made the team better without a title, and he asks the team, without saying who applied, who they think the next leader should be. If the team already trusts someone and sees them as their leader, that is the best evaluation you can get. For people who are not chosen, he helps build a development plan centered on developing the people around them, because that needs no title.

This is the heart of You Are Capable of More: Leadership. Chris wrote about it for Forbes: How to Pick Leaders Your Team Already Trusts.

Lesson 3: People stay for how work makes them feel

At a company holiday party, an employee’s spouse came up to thank Chris. Not for a bonus or a title, but because working there had helped their spouse become a better person at home. That conversation shaped his personal mission: help as many people as possible become the best version of themselves.

It is also why the culture work came first. Read Chris in Inc. on why fences do not keep good employees, and in Forbes on building culture first. Chris teaches the five drivers in You Are Capable of a Better Culture.

Lesson 4: Growth runs on selling

A company does not grow 10x without people who can sell. Chris learned it in the seat a sales team sits in, from calling one buyer at the biggest retailer in the country until he landed every store and a display, to helping grow Uniti Med. The frameworks he teaches, LOCKS for seeing why a deal is stuck and LAARC for handling the objection, come from that experience.

Chris teaches them in You Are Capable of More Sales. Go deeper: The Paper Clip Test for Sales in Inc.

Lesson 5: Own the hard calls

Chris led through healthcare staffing during COVID and through the acquisition by GQR Healthcare. An acquisition brings hard decisions, including the difficult choice to cut duplicate roles. Building the company, growing it fast and then combining two organizations all required the same thing: ownership of outcomes, even when the right call is not the easy one. In 2025 Chris also launched Uniti Med’s Managed Service Provider program to streamline vendor partnerships and workforce technology.

Ownership is the starting point of the signature keynote, You Are Capable of More: Become the Best Version of Yourself. Go deeper: Merging Company Cultures After an Acquisition.