Reinhold Messner is an example of resilience and stamina that has enabled him to survivenot only at inhospitable altitudes. His new book ‘Gegenwind: Vom Wachsen anWiderständen’ ('Against the Wind: Reflections on a Self-Determined Life', PiperVerlag) has just been published. He will also be talking about it at the Unternehmertag, and we promise you that it will not only be interesting for mountaineers!

Reinhold Messner, who was born in South Tyrol in 1944, climbed his first 3000 metrepeak with his father when he was only five years old. After studying engineering he worked for a short time as a secondary school teacher before devoting himself entirely to mountaineering – and became an explorer of limits.

Since 1969 Reinhold Messner has made more than a hundred journeys to the world’s mountains and deserts. He has achieved numerous first ascents, climbed all fourteen 8000 m peaks and the Seven Summits, traversed the Antarctic, the Gobi and Taklamakandeserts and crossed Greenland diagonally. He has also written four dozen books.

In contrast to modern adventurers, Reinhold Messner is less concerned with records than with being exposed to natural landscapes in the raw and making his way with a minimum of equipment. He followed Albert Frederick Mummery’s dictum “by fair means” on Nanga Parbat and Fridtjof Nansen’s “call of the North” to the icepacks of the Arctic and crossed the Antarctic via the South Pole on the basis of an idea suggested by Shackleton.

Opposing travelling on foot to the possibilities available in the age of communication, he forgoes the use of expansion bolts, oxygen masks and satellite phones – an anachronism perhaps, but one that preserves an inexhaustible source of experience in the wilderness for future generations.

ReinholdMessner is the father of four children. Between his various travels, Reinhold Messner lives with his wife and children in Meran and at Juval Castle in SouthTyrol, where he runs mountain farms, writes and develops museum projects.

As a commentator on television and as a public speaker, he is in great demand worldwide by mountaineers, tourism professionals and business leaders.

Following his term as a Member of the European Parliament (1999 – 2004), Reinhold Messner spent many years building up his Messner Mountain Museums (MMM) and his MMF Foundation, which supports mountain peoples worldwide. Now he is dedicating himself to his new passion, film, as another form of storytelling on the subject of mountains.

Messner has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Patron's Medal of the RoyalGeographic Society for his contribution to mountaineering and mountain areas. This is one of the most prestigious awards approved by the British Monarchy.

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