Mona Herter’s daily work is a lot about move­ment, or, more precisely, about tracking move­ments. A project manager in the Digital Solu­tions depart­ment, she is tasked with managing Track&Trace projects and ensuring that our customers are always in control of where their prod­ucts are at every step of the pack­aging process. In her free time, the 31-year-old is almost constantly on the move herself – whether on her racing bike or on the dance floor.

She’s already crossed the Alps twice by bike: The first time was back in the summer of 2021 when she cycled from Immen­stadt in the Allgäu region along the Via Claudia Augusta long-distance bike path to Riva del Garda on Lake Garda. “The idea was more of a joke at the begin­ning. Although I did own a racing bike, I never used it much. But then we started plan­ning and training – and really did pull it off.”

It all comes with a view

Together with her sister and a friend, Mona covered a total of six Alpine passes, 400 kilo­me­ters and 6,000 meters of alti­tude within a week. “Having to tackle the highest pass on the hottest day and battling with a head­wind is, of course, exhausting. But being so close to nature and always enjoying such stun­ning views is simply awesome!” she says, explaining her moti­va­tion for this extra­or­di­nary feat. “And ‘all-inclu­sive’ is just not my kind of vaca­tion”, she adds with a laugh.

‘All-inclu­sive’ is just not my kind of vaca­tion.

Mona Herter

Apart from a tricky flat tire, which she was able get patched up in an Italian garage, every­thing went smoothly on the tour. So smoothly, in fact, that in the summer of 2022 she hopped back on the saddle for another cross-Alpine tour which took her from Winterthur in Switzer­land over 3 passes, 400 kilo­me­ters and 4500 meters of alti­tude to Lake Geneva. “It also makes me proud to be able to say that I made it across the Alps on my own leg power.”

Swap­ping pedals for dancing shoes

Yet Mona Herter’s legs are actu­ally accus­tomed to other move­ments: she’s also been passionate about dancing Salsa Cubana, Son Cubano and other Afro-Cuban dances for over seven years. “When I was in Barcelona for my master’s degree, a friend signed up for a salsa class. I thought I could go for that too because, as a woman, you just have to let your dance partner lead you. But when I went to a Salsa party with her, I was taught other­wise. Later, when I went to Turin to continue my master’s degree, the first thing I did was to sign up for a class.”

Today, Herter is a salsa instructor herself and gives classes at the univer­sity sports center in Ulm. “When I become one with the music and my dance partner, I forget every­thing around me and can really switch off,” she says. Four times a week, she moves to Latin Amer­ican rhythms and teaches others that dancing is much more than just a sequence of steps: “Dancing is commu­ni­ca­tion. When you dance with different part­ners, you realize how different everyone is, like in the way they lead or follow, and how each dance couple has their own special chem­istry. There’s no hard rule about who leads and who follows. A lead is a sugges­tion, and you can take it, leave it, or suggest some­thing else.”

Her ability to inter­pret her partner’s signals, and to let herself be led at times, but also to take the lead herself, also helps Mona Herter a lot in her everyday work. “Even in a lead­er­ship posi­tion, you’re never just going in one direc­tion. You engage with each other.” But she has also learned some­thing from the Alpine tours for her job as project manager: “Even if it’s diffi­cult at times to ‘push things through” and you’re in the middle of climbing 700 meters of switch­backs up the moun­tain, you know that it will all be worth it in the end.”

Inspi­ra­tion: Mona Herter’s teacher couple at a dance show: