Anja Blacha

Anja Blacha pushes her limits to show everyone that there are none. Thus, the extreme athlete fought her way alone with a sledge weighing over 100 kilos over a 1400-kilometre distance through Antarctica to the South Pole in only 58 days – a historical record, because it was the longest “solo, unsupported, unassisted” polar expedition by a woman in history. At the same time, she was also the youngest woman ever to succeed in such a polar expedition. Upon reaching her destination, she raised her flag with the message “NOT BAD FOR A GIRL”.

She became the fifth woman in the world (or third, according to Eberhard Jurgalski’s True Summit classification) to climb thirteen of the fourteen 8,000-metre peaks without bottled oxygen, and has stood on the summit of Mount Everest three times. She was the first German woman to reach the summits of K2, Kangchenjunga, Annapurna I and Gasherbrum I. She is also the youngest German person to have climbed the Seven Summits – the highest mountains on all seven continents.

Anja Blacha gives talks on motivation, goals and challenges, resilience, risk management as well as team and self-leadership.

Lecture topics by Anja Blacha:

Think Big: Setting Big Goals and Achieve them.
Topics focus on motivation, resilience, risk management, team and self-leadership:

• How to make it to Mount Everest, the South Pole and completely different goals.
• How to persevere in the face of challenges, overcome limitations and move forward.
• How to turn weaknesses into superpowers.
• What makes successful teams and how they master even extreme situations together.
• How you can safely face risks with the right risk management.

NOT BAD FOR A GIRL.?! World record!
How to deal positively with stereotypes and how to go your own way as a woman in male domains.

Anja Blacha: Adventure extreme.
Fascinating insights into expeditions to the highest mountains in the world and the polar regions: Seven Summits, Mount Everest, Broad Peak & K2, Greenland, Antarctica.

Anja Blacha grew up in Bielefeld, Germany, and studied business administration at the University of Mannheim up to her Bachelor’s degree, supplemented by studies at UC Berkeley and Korea University. She then moved to London and completed a master’s degree in philosophy at Birkbeck University of London before moving to Zurich in 2016, where she has since worked in the telecommunications industry.

In 2013, accompanying her sister on a backpacking trip through South America. She discovered the ruined city of Machu Picchu in Peru. This experience motivated her to take up extreme mountaineering and sparked her “wanderlust”. In the following years, this led her to the seven highest mountains in the world and to other places such as the largest ice dome on earth, Berkner Island, all the way to the South Pole.

Anja Blacha was also active as a fencer. In 2012, she was named Sportswoman of the Year by the University of London. Today she lives and works in Zurich.

Interested in working with Anja Blacha?

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