The $575 billion your company can't see.
Presenteeism, invisible illness, and burnout cost US employers $575B a year — 10x more than a sick day. I turn that invisible cost into a business case leaders can act on.
- We put a number on the presenteeism already inside your workforce.
- 60% of adults live with a chronic condition — most of it invisible on paper.
- This isn't a wellness session. It's a business case, backed by data.
I spent seven years bedbound before my body's twenty diagnoses had a name — a former paramedic who has since trained 50,000+ people across 27 countries.
The inversion
I used to be the person who entered the room fast.
I became the person waiting for someone to enter for me.
For nine years, I worked in emergency medicine. I learned how to walk into a room under pressure, read what mattered, and act. Then my own body stopped working.
No clear answer. Almost a decade from first symptoms to diagnosis. I do not tell that story for sympathy — I tell it because that is where the work was built.
I know what pressure does to people. I know what systems miss. And I know what can happen when a room stops acting as if everything is fine.
What I do
Keynotes
*For conferences, leadership events, healthcare, pharma, universities and organizations that need more than another polished talk. This is not motivational speaking. It is live testimony that opens the room — without pretending the story has a clean ending.
The Room
*A half-day facilitated format for 10–12 people. No slides. No abstract empathy exercises. No corporate language that protects everyone from the truth. A structured live encounter where what is usually unsaid becomes something people can finally work with.
Advisory
*Embedded lived-experience perspective for healthcare, pharma, research and patient-facing strategy. Not as decoration. Not as a moving story at the end of a presentation. As a witness inside the room — helping people notice what decisions look like from the other side of the system.
The room changes when the story is real.
Most organizations do not need more information. They need a different kind of attention. My work creates the conditions for people to speak more honestly, listen more precisely, and notice what pressure usually hides.
This is not therapy. It is not coaching. It is not a slide deck about empathy.
It is live facilitation grounded in emergency medicine, chronic illness, patient experience, and the discipline of staying present when the room becomes uncomfortable.
Who this is for
They want to know what their own workforce's invisible cost actually looks like, before it becomes unavoidable.
Healthcare teams trying to reconnect clinical intention with patient reality.
Pharma and patient engagement teams who want the patient perspective to shape decisions, not decorate them.
Universities and medical schools teaching future professionals what cannot be learned from a slide deck.
Leadership teams under pressure, where everyone sounds fine but nobody quite believes it.
Conferences that need a speaker who can change the room, not just fill a slot.
— Boehringer Ingelheim leader
About Roi
Roi Shternin is a keynote speaker, author, and former paramedic based near Vienna, Austria. He spent seven years bedbound before his twenty diagnoses had a name, and now spends his working life showing leaders, HR teams, and clinicians the version of that collapse already happening, invisibly, inside their own organizations.
Poor employee health costs US employers $575 billion a year, most of it presenteeism nobody is measuring — people working impaired and looking fine on paper, costing companies ten times more than a sick day. Roi has trained more than 50,000 people across 27 countries, written seven books, and delivered a TEDx talk on invisible illness and organizational resilience.
He is also a Dell Technologies Precision Ambassador for AI in health and life sciences — one of two health voices among 24 global ambassadors, building local-inference AI agents that read patient experience data without sending it to the cloud.
He turns the hidden cost of chronic illness and burnout into a business case leaders can act on.
Frequently asked questions
What does Roi Shternin speak about?
Roi speaks about patient experience, healthcare communication, pressure, chronic illness, leadership, listening, and what systems miss when everyone in the room is performing certainty.
Is this a motivational keynote?
No. Roi's work is not built around a clean recovery story or a five-step framework. It is testimony-based, direct and live.
Who books Roi?
Healthcare organizations, pharma teams, universities, medical schools, leadership teams, conferences and institutions working with patient experience, communication, culture and care.
What is The Room?
The Room is a half-day facilitated format for 10–12 people. It is built around testimony, live conversation and the things people usually avoid saying.
Does Roi use slides?
No. The work is live, room-based and adapted to the people present.
What languages does Roi work in?
English, Hebrew and German.
Bring Roi into the room.
For keynotes, The Room, advisory work and selected institutional collaborations.
If you want a standard motivational keynote, I'm probably not your speaker. If you want to know what your organization's invisible cost actually is, let's talk.
Book Roi